A series of devastating car bombings rocked Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least 121 people and wounding hundreds more, according to preliminary accounts by witnesses, the police and hospital officials.
Five bombs in all, including at least three suicide attacks, struck near a college, a court complex in western Baghdad, a mosque and a market and a neighborhood near the Interior Ministry in what appeared to be a coordinated assault on the capital.
Two powerful suicide car bombs blew up outside the Justice Ministry and city government offices in downtown Baghdad Sunday, killing at least 136 people in the worst attack in more than two years. Iraqi leaders said the attacks aimed to disrupt political progress in the months leading up to January’s crucial elections.
While violence has dropped dramatically in the country since the height of the sectarian tensions, the latest bombings underscored the precarious nature of the security gains and the insurgency’s abilities to still pull off devastating attacks in the center of what is supposed to be one of Baghdad’s most secure areas.
The remains of a US navy pilot whose fate had been a mystery for years after he was shot down over Iraq during the first Gulf War have been identified, the Pentagon said Sunday.
A team of army pathologists “has positively identified remains recovered in Iraq as those of Captain Michael Scott Speicher,” the Department of Defense said.
Speicher’s F/A-18 Hornet was shot down over west-central Iraq on January 17th, 1991 during Operation Desert Storm.
According to the Defense Department statement, Speicher “was found dead at the crash site by Bedouins and his remains buried.”
His fate had long remained a mystery, with some believing that the pilot was being held prisoner by then Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
Acting on a tip from local Iraqis, US Marines stationed in the western Iraqi province of Al-Anbar in July recovered human remains from a desert grave and flew them to the United States for identification.
“The recovered remains include bones and multiple skeletal fragments,” the statement said.
“Positive identification was made by comparing Captain Speicher’s dental records with the jawbone recovered at the site. The teeth are a match, both visually and radiographically.”
Iraqi citizens, including one who claimed to be present when Speicher was buried, led the Marines to the site, the Pentagon said.
President Barack Obama said the news was “a reminder of the selfless service that led him to make the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.”
“My thoughts and prayers are with his family, and I hope that the recovery of his remains will bring them a much needed sense of closure,” he said in a statement released by the White House press office.
Three-fourths of Americans support the withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraqi cities and towns, although they believe the pullout may lead to increased violence, according to a national poll released Tuesday.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll found that 73 percent of Americans favored the withdrawal of US combat troops, while 26 percent were opposed.
Support for the troop pullback crosses US political party lines, with 72 percent of Democrats and 74 percent of Republicans favoring the move.
The survey was taken between Friday and Sunday, as Iraqi forces prepared to take control of towns and cities nationwide on Tuesday, six years after the US-led invasion.
According to the survey, 52 percent of Americans believe that violence in Iraqi cities will increase after US troops withdrawal, with 32 percent saying things will remain about the same and 15 percent predicting that the level of violence will decrease.
If violence does increase, about two-thirds say that the United States should not send combat troops back into Iraq’s town and cities.
A U.S. officer says a U.S. Army sergeant has been charged with five counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault in the fatal shooting at a military counseling clinic in Baghdad.
Maj. Gen. David Perkins told reporters Tuesday that the charges were filed against Sgt. John M. Russell of the 54th Engineering Battalion based in Bamberg, Germany. Russell was taken into custody following the Monday shooting at Camp Liberty that killed five soldiers.
Perkins said the dead included two doctors — one from the Navy and the other from the Army. The other three dead were enlisted personnel.
He says a probe has also begun into whether the Army has enough mental health facilities in Iraq.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Saturday that this week’s deadly suicide bombings in Iraq are a sign that extremists are afraid the Iraqi government is succeeding.
Making her first trip to Iraq as America’s top diplomat, Clinton said the country has made great strides despite the recent violence that killed at least 159 people on Thursday and Friday.
“I think that these suicide bombings … are unfortunately, in a tragic way, a signal that the rejectionists fear that Iraq is going in the right direction,” Clinton told reporters traveling aboard her plane ahead of her unannounced visit to Baghdad.
“I think in Iraq there will always be political conflicts, there will always be, as in any society, sides drawn between different factions, but I really believe Iraq as a whole is on the right track,” she said, citing “overwhelming evidence” of “really impressive” progress.
“Are there going to be bad days? Yes, there are,” Clinton said. “But I don’t know of any difficult international situation anywhere in the world or history where there haven’t been bad days.”
