Suicide bombing kills 68 in Iraq

BAQOUBA, Iraq -- A suicide car bomb exploded on a busy downtown boulevard in Baqouba Wednesday, reducing a bus full of passengers to a charred wreck, ripping through nearby shops and killing at least 68 Iraqis in one of the deadliest single insurgent attacks since the U.S. invasion.\nDozens of burned bodies were strewn in the street and piled on curbsides and vehicles, fruit stalls and shops were a bloody tangle of twisted metal from the blast, which targeted Iraqis lined up outside a police recruiting station. Most of the victims were civilians or from among the hundreds of men waiting to join the force.\n"These were all innocent Iraqis, there were no Americans," an angry man shouted as Iraqis tried to cover the dead with pieces of cardboard.\nThe attack, the deadliest since Americans handed power to an Iraqi government June 28, came three days ahead of a national conference aimed at creating an interim assembly -- widely considered a vital step toward democracy. Iraqi officials have warned attacks could intensify as the country tries to move forward.\nU.S. and other coalition forces were caught in fierce gun battles with militants in two cities.\nA raid by Iraqi forces backed by U.S. and Ukrainian troops sparked fighting in Suwariyah, southeast of Baghdad; 35 guerrillas and seven Iraqi policemen were killed. Ten Iraqi police were wounded and 40 insurgents were captured, said Polish Lt. Col. Artur Domanski, a multinational force spokesman.\nIn Ramadi, west of the capital, insurgents launched near-simultaneous attacks on several U.S. bases, wounding 10 soldiers. A guerrilla was killed, and during the fighting a mortar hit an apartment building, killing an Iraqi woman. Later, gunmen in the city fired on two U.S. aircraft, damaging both and wounding a pilot, a military spokesman said without specifying the type of craft.\nThe blast in Baqouba is an insurgent hotbed 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.\n"(The bombing) was once again an attempt by murderers to deny the Iraqi people their dream of a peaceful country that rests on a solid foundation of freedom," Secretary of State Colin Powell said during a news conference in Cairo. "We have to condemn it, we have to fight it. We must not let these kinds of tragic incidents deter us from our goal."\nIraqi officials have expressed concerns that Saturday's national conference will be a major target for attack. During the conference, some 1,000 delegates are to put together an assembly that will work alongside Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's government.\n"The terrorists' goal is to hamper the police work, terrorize our citizens and show that the government is unable to protect the Iraqi people, and this will not happen," said Hamid al-Bayati, a deputy foreign minister.\nThe 10:13 a.m. bombing shattered the bustling heart of a commercial district filled with shops, government buildings and the police station.\nTwenty-one of the dead were passengers on a white commuter bus that was left a charred husk by the blast. Pieces of glass, twisted metal and abandoned shoes, all covered in blood and human remains, were strewn across the pavement, and a shop's white security gate was splattered with blood.\nWitnesses said the bomb targeted men waiting outside the al-Najda police station trying to sign up for the force.\n"As one of the officers was giving us instructions on how to register, we heard a big explosion," said one of the men in line, 33-year-old Sabah Nouri, whose left leg and hand were injured. "Suddenly I found myself being thrown to the ground, and I was unable to move."\nThe blast killed 68 people and wounded 56 others, according to Saad al-Amili, a Health Ministry official. "It's all civilian casualties at this stage," U.S. Army Capt. Marshall Jackson said.\nThe local hospital was overwhelmed with the casualties. Every bed was filled, forcing many of the injured to sit on the floor amid pools of blood as frantic health workers treated them. One injured man sat against the wall, holding his head in his hands and weeping.\nIn an audio recording posted Wednesday on one such site, a speaker purported to be the spiritual adviser of an Iraqi insurgency group justified killing fellow Muslims when they protect infidels or even the deaths of bystanders in an attack.\n"If infidels take Muslims as protectors and Muslims do not fight them, it is allowed to kill the Muslims," said the speaker, identified as Sheik Abu Anas al-Shami, spiritual leader of Tawhid and Jihad, a group led by al-Qaida-linked Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.\nThe speaker also said that if Muslims who "mingled" among infidels were killed in an attack, that would be justified because killing infidels is paramount. The tape was recorded before the June 28 handover of power.