The Hindu : International : Aspirants for security services targeted again

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 01, 2005

International

International

Aspirants for security services targeted again

By Atul Aneja

MANAMA, FEB. 28. At least 115 persons have been killed and 148 injured in a deadly car bomb blast in Hilla, 100 km south of Baghdad.

A statement from local police said a suicide car bomb "hit a gathering of people who were applying for work in the security services." Guerillas have been targeting individuals planning to join Iraq's pro-U.S. security forces.

Hilla is also mainly a Shia town, but it is as yet unclear whether the purpose of attack is to stir up sectarian strife between the majority Shia and Sunni communities.

Eyewitnesses said bodies and body parts were strewn on the ground close to the site of the blast. Television pictures showed people picking up blood soaked body parts and piling them into blankets.

The scale of the casualties has overwhelmed the medical facilities in the town. Doctors from nearby Najaf and Karbala have been rushed to Hilla. The spokesman for Iraq's Red Crescent Society was quoted as saying the agency was also sending medicines and doctors to the town. The death toll could rise because many of the inured were in a serious condition.

Hectic parleys

The bombing comes amid hectic parleys among Shias, who are looking for political partners to form a government following the January 30 national elections.

A delegation from the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the coalition of religious Shia parties that won 140 seats in the Iraqi Parliament, visited the top Shia spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, at his home in Najaf on Sunday. Hussein Shahristani, a member of the delegation said later that "The basic advice that Sayed Sistani gave was that action should be taken to include all Iraqis in the political process."

Unlike the Shias, most Sunni groups boycotted the polls, and their marginalisation could undermine the credibility of the new constitution that the elected assembly will write.

Syria reportedly handed over Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hasan al-Tikriti, former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's wanted half-brother.

The Reuters news agency quoted a "senior government official" as saying,

"The Syrian authorities, because of the tremendous pressure on them, did something about Ibrahim." Many western governments and Israel have intensified pressure on Syria to withdraw its 14,000 troops from Lebanon following the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, earlier this month.

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