4 U.S. Soldiers Also Killed; U.N. Says 35,000
Iraqi Civilians Were Killed In 2006
(CBS News)BAGHDAD An explosion
outside a Baghdad university as students were heading home for the day killed
at least 65 people on Tuesday in the deadliest of several attacks on
predominantly Shiite areas. The attacks — and the announcement of four U.S.
military deaths — came on a day the United Nations said more than 34,000 Iraqi
civilians died last year in sectarian violence.
Attacks in Baghdad — including the university explosion, blasts at a
marketplace for used motorcycles and a drive-by shooting — killed more than
100 people in what appeared to be a final spasm of violence ahead of an
imminent drive by the Iraqi government and U.S. forces to secure the capital.
On Monday, the Iraqi government hanged two of Saddam Hussein's henchmen in an
execution that left many of the ousted leader's fellow Sunni Muslims seething
after one of the accused, the ousted leader's half brother, was decapitated on
the gallows.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Tuesday's violence was the work of those
seeking revenge for the executions, calling those responsible "a desperate
group of terrorists and Saddamists."
The military said four U.S. soldiers with Task Force Lightning were killed
Monday in the northwestern province of Ninevah, home to the city of Mosul,
which has seen a recent increase in violence. The deaths raised to at least
3,026 members of the U.S. military who have died since the Iraq war started in
March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
In Baghdad, the deadliest attacks took place in primarily Shiite neighborhoods
and appeared to be the work of Sunnis, who largely make up the insurgency
targeting the Iraqi government and U.S. forces.
Raad Abbas, a 26-year-old wounded in the attack at the motorcycle market that
killed 13, said he went to the market because the city had been quieter over
the past two weeks.
"Shortly after midday, I heard an explosion. Motorcycles were flying in the
air, people were falling dead and wounded," he said from his hospital bed.
As the curious gathered to look at the aftermath of the first explosion — a
bomb attached to a motorcycle — a suicide car bomber drove into the crowd and
blew up his vehicle. The attack appeared to target the mainly Shiite
neighborhood near the market but also was near the Sheik al-Gailani shrine,
one of the holiest Sunni locations in the capital.
The bombing near Al-Mustansiriya University took place as students were
boarding minivans waiting outside the building to take them home, police said.
Some police said the explosion was caused by a suicide car bomber and others
said two of the minivans blew up as students were boarding.
Taqi al-Moussawi, the university's dean, told state-run al-Iraqiya TV there
were two explosions. He said a suicide attacker was later discovered with the
apparent aim of targeting students as they fled but the attacker's explosives
belt was detonated before students got close to him. He also said the students
belonged to all religions, sects and ethnic groups.
"The terrorists want to stop education. ... those students had nothing to do
with politics. They only came to the university to learn," he said.
About 45 minutes after the university attack, gunmen in a minivan and on two
motorcycles opened fire on an outdoor market in a mainly Shiite neighborhood
in nearby section of eastern Baghdad, police said. At least 11 people were
killed.
In other developments:
Ahead of the drive to secure Baghdad, Cabinet ministers and legislators loyal
to the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr were instructed to end their
six-week boycott of the political process, but laid out a series of
conditions, including a demand that the government set up a committee to
establish a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's request for support of the new U.S.
strategy in Iraq from Arab leaders got a tepid response from Saudi Arabia's
Foreign Minister Tuesday. Saud al-Faisel expressed skepticism that the Iraqi
government is capable of doing its part to crack down on the insurgency. Rice
again said the United States believes that Syria can play a positive role in
Iraqi peace efforts, if it stops supporting extremists in the region.
A former Iraqi translator for the U.S. military said his life was saved when
he was granted a special visa to live in the United States, a status made
available to only 50 Afghan and Iraqi nationals annually who served in the
same capacity. The Sunni Arab, set to appear before the Senate Judiciary
Committee on Tuesday, said he was threatened by enraged fellow students,
survived a car bomb and learned his name was listed on the doors of mosques
calling for his death. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., has argued for an
increase in the number of translator visas.
Gianni Magazzeni, the chief of the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq in
Baghdad, said 34,452 civilians were killed — an average of 94 per day — and
36,685 were wounded last year in sectarian violence.
The Iraqi Health Ministry did not comment on the U.N. report, which was based
on information released by the Iraqi government and hospitals. The government
has disputed previous figures released by the U.N. as "inaccurate and
exaggerated."
White House spokesman Tony Snow said he doesn't want to quibble over the U.N.
estimate, reports CBS News Correspondent Mark KNoller. Whether it's more or
less, Snow said it's too many.
"It is clear that the level of violence in Baghdad and throughout Iraq is
unacceptable," Snow said.
The U.N. report also said that 30,842 people were detained in the country as
of Dec. 31, including 14,534 in detention facilities run by U.S.-led
multinational forces.
It pointed to killings targeting police, who are seen by insurgents as
collaborating with the U.S. effort in Iraq. The report said the Interior
Ministry had reported on Dec. 24 that 12,000 police officers had been killed
since the war started in 2003.
In Monday's execution, a thickset Barzan Ibrahim plunged through the trap door
and was beheaded by the jerk of the thick rope at the end of his fall, in the
same execution chamber where Saddam was hanged a little over two weeks
earlier.
A government video of the hanging, played at a briefing for reporters, showed
Ibrahim's body passing the camera in a blur. The body came to rest on its
chest while the severed head lay a few yards away, still wearing the black
hood pulled on moments before by one of Ibrahim's five masked executioners.
CBS News reporter Edward Yeranian reports the video has caused a firestorm
(audio) across the Arab world, not just in Iraq.
He says the large-circulation Arab daily newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, published
in London, has reported that the beheading was deliberate, carried out by
enemies of Saddam's former regime to insult Sunni Muslims.
