Joyous Iraq soccer news, then slaughter
Two suicide car bombs ripped through throngs that poured into Baghdad streets carrying the Iraqi flag Wednesday in a rare moment of shared joy over the national soccer team’s surprise run to reach its first Asian Cup final. Police said at least 50 people were killed and 135 were injured.
The savagery of the attacks shocked even Baghdad’s battle-hardened residents.
“These criminals don’t want Iraqis to be happy,” said Qais Mula, a grocery store owner who said several of his regular customers were killed in one of the blasts. “The flags fell with the dead bodies in a pool of blood.”
In another reminder of the divisions that bedevil Iraq, the largest Sunni Arab bloc suspended its participation in the Shiite Muslim-led government, complaining that its members have been sidelined.
A love of soccer is one of the few things that unites Iraqis from all ethnic and religious backgrounds. Shops closed early, streets emptied and violence dropped to unusually low levels as Iraqis sat transfixed through the nail-biting Asian Cup semifinal match against South Korea, broadcast live on Iraqi television and radio from Malaysia. Even policemen clustered around hand-held radios to follow the game.
At a coffee shop in Baghdad’s upscale Jadriya neighborhood, men and children clustered around a small TV set, rising to their feet to shout or curse every time one of the teams came close to scoring.
“This winning spree will help us get rid of this sectarian sedition, which has afflicted the country for the last four years,” said Saad Abdul-Hussein, a Shiite security guard who was among the group. “You can see how unified we are here in the coffee shop. There are Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds and Christians, all sitting together.”
Across the country, people have rallied behind the squad, whose mixed makeup has shown Iraqis that they can still come together after years of sectarian bloodshed.
“Soccer is one of the greatest gifts that the Iraqis have, and this team is a national treasure,” said Akram Khafaji, the cafe’s stout and graying owner.
After their team won, 4-3, on penalties, thousands poured into the streets across the country, leaping on top of vehicles, dancing, spraying each other with party foam and pointing their guns to the sky in celebration. At least one person was killed and 17 were injured by celebratory gunfire, police said.
Less than two hours after the game was over, a bomber drove his explosives-laden car into a crowd celebrating outside a popular ice cream shop in Baghdad’s Sunni-dominated western Mansour neighborhood, killing at least 30 people and injuring 75, police said.
Another bomber detonated his payload among revelers celebrating with soldiers at an Iraqi army checkpoint in Ghadeer, a Christian enclave in east Baghdad, killing 20 more people and injuring 60, police said.
“A speeding car came from nowhere and rushed into the crowd ... turning this celebration into sadness,” said Mula, the grocery store owner.
“I can’t think of anything more sad than those injured people crying for help and everyone trying to run for his life,” said Fadi Saadi, a salesman at an electrical appliance store who was visiting a nearby barber.
Earlier Wednesday, leaders of the Sunni bloc known as the Iraqi Accordance Front said they were giving Prime Minister Nouri Maliki a week to meet a list of demands or they would quit his Cabinet for good.
The demands include a general amnesty for detainees who have not been charged with specific crimes; respect for human rights, including an end to random arrests; the dismantling of private militias; inclusion of all communities in the government and security forces; and a serious effort to return those displaced by sectarian violence to their homes.
The Accordance Front’s five ministers and Deputy Prime Minister Salam Zikam Ali Zubaie had already been boycotting Cabinet meetings but would now stop coming to their offices, said Adnan Dulaimi, who heads the bloc.
“We at the Accordance Front want to be allowed to take an effective part in building the new Iraq and preserving its wealth and sovereignty,” Dulaimi told The Times.
Zubaie said Maliki’s government had repeatedly excluded Sunni Arab politicians from decision-making.
“We have started to feel ashamed of our participation in this government,” he said.
The move comes at a delicate time for Maliki’s government, under enormous pressure to show progress on legislation aimed at reconciling Iraq’s factions before U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and the top U.S. commander here, Gen. David H. Petraeus, report to Congress in September.
Dulaimi said the bloc’s boycott would not affect parliament, which must approve the legislation. The Accordance Front has 44 representatives in the 275-member parliament, who recently ended their own boycott.
Iran, meanwhile, signaled it might be willing to consider talks with the United States at the level of deputy foreign minister after a testy meeting Tuesday between the two countries’ ambassadors in Iraq.
“The issue can be considered if a formal request is received from the U.S. side,” Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted by his country’s official news agency as telling reporters in Tehran. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Washington was unlikely to make such a request.
There were heated exchanges Tuesday between Crocker and his Iranian counterpart at the meeting, during which the U.S. envoy repeated accusations that Tehran is arming and training Shiite militias in Iraq. But the two sides agreed to set up a security subcommittee to discuss ways to ease the violence.
A U.S. official said Wednesday that talks on setting up that mechanism had begun. He declined to elaborate.
In Baghdad, besides the two bombings, the bodies of 18 gunshot victims, apparent targets of sectarian killings, were recovered by police. Eight more bodies were found south of the capital, including those of a father and son in their pickup truck behind a school in Iskandariya.
A bomb exploded in a minibus in the Shiite-dominated Shaab neighborhood in east Baghdad, killing three people and injuring two.
Six Iraqis were killed and eight wounded when U.S. and Iraqi forces raided Sadr City, another Shiite district in the city, police said. Rear Adm. Mark Fox, a U.S. military spokesman, blamed such casualties on militants who fight among civilians.
The U.S. military announced the death of a soldier that wasn’t battle-related.
--
Times staff writers Said Rifai and Saif Hameed and special correspondents in Baghdad and Hillah contributed to this report.
