National News Second Iraqi bombing in two days pushes death toll to 100

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BAGHDAD (AP) - A second suicide bombing in two days killed up to 47 people Feb. 11, pushing the toll in the back-to-back attacks to 100. Again, Iraqis were the targets - this time, a crowd of volunteers for Iraq's new army - in an apparent campaign to wreck U.S. plans to transfer power by summer.

The U.S. military posted a $10 million (¥1.05 billion) bounty on a Jordanian militant suspected of organizing violence and plotting an acceleration in attacks aimed at sparking a Sunni-Shiite civil war in Iraq.

The United States made public a letter to al-Qaeda leaders thought to be sent by the militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

In the letter, al-Zarqawi warns that militants are in a "race against time" to stop the June 30 handover of power, when Iraqi security forces will take a much stronger role in battling the insurgency

In the Feb. 11 attack in Baghdad, a car packed with explosives drove up to a crowd of Iraqis waiting outside an army recruitment center - only a few blocks from the heavily fortified Green Zone, headquarters of the U.S. administration.

The driver detonated the explosives, killing 47 people and wounding 55, the U.S.-led coalition said

The aim was clearly to kill Iraqis working with the U.S.-led coalition, rather than a particular religious group, because the crowd was likely a mix of Sunnis and Shiites.

But the suicide bombing Feb. 10 targeted a mostly Shiite town, Iskandariyah, south of the capital. A truck carrying a similar amount of explosives blew up outside a police station, killing 53 Iraqis, including would-be recruits lined up to apply for jobs.

There is no claim of responsibility for the rare consecutive attacks.

Insurgents have recently mounted a series of bomb attacks against Iraqis. Since Jan. 1, at least 261 Iraqi civilians have been killed in major attacks, although neither the Iraqi interim government nor the U.S. military can provide the total number of Iraqi casualties nationwide.

イラク、連日のテロで死者100人

11日、バグダッドにあるイラク陸軍兵募集事務所付近で、志願者の列に爆発物を積んだ車が突っ込み、47人が死亡した。前日には53人が死亡する爆弾テロが起きており、2日間のテロで死者が100人に上った。

Shukan ST: Feb. 20, 2004

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