More than 2,000 gather at Iraq bombing site

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- After the deadliest attack since the U.S.-led invasion, more than 2,000 people demonstrated at the site of a car bombing that killed 125 people south of Baghdad, chanting "No to terrorism!"\nAn Internet statement purportedly by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida group in Iraq claimed responsibility for the bombing.\nTen more people died from injuries in Monday's car bombing in Hillah, south of Baghdad, raising the death toll to 125. The attacker detonated the bomb as a group of police and national guard recruits were lining up to take physicals at a medical clinic.\nAt least 141 others were injured in the blast.\nThe Internet statement by al-Qaida in Iraq said the attack targeted a registration center for Iraqi police and National Guardsmen. It made no mention of the medical clinic or a nearby market where a number of people were also killed.\nIt was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the statement, which was posted on the Web site that has previously carried al-Qaida material. The statement also was posted under the name of Abu Maysara al-Iraqi, the designated media coordinator of al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born leader of al-Qaida in Iraq.\nThe protesters held the impromptu demonstration in front of the clinic, chanting "No to terrorism!" and "No to Baptism and Wahhabism!"\nWahhabism is a reference to adherents of the strict form of Sunni Islam preached by Osama bin Laden, whereas the Baath party was the political organization that ran Iraq under Saddam Hussein.\nThe demonstrators also demanded that Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi step down.\nPolice prevented people from parking cars in front of the clinic or the hospital, where authorities blocked hospital gates with barbed wire to stave off hundreds of victims' relatives desperate for information about loved ones.\nProvincial Gov. Walid al-Janabi said no funeral procession would be held in Hillah because of "security reasons." He did not elaborate, but police said they feared new attacks.\nAnxious for news of loved ones, victims' relatives gathered around lists carrying the names of the dead and injured that were posted on hospital walls. They also went through victims' belongings, including identification cards, left in boxes nearby.\nDistraught relatives at the hospital morgue placed the dead into coffins and loaded them onto pickup trucks, taking them to city mosques and homes where the bodies will be washed before burial, a Muslim tradition in Iraq.\nMany of the corpses, charred or dismembered, were unrecognizable and were stuffed into white plastic bags. Other bodies lay on the ground in the open because the overwhelmed morgue had no place to store them.\n"We blame Hillah police for this tragedy because they didn't take the necessary measures to protect innocent people," said Hussein Hassoun, who lost two nephews who were standing in line for medical checkups, trying to join the local police force.\nMany of the dead will be taken to the holy Shiite city of Najaf for burial later Tuesday.\nAn Iraqi National Guard major was killed by a roadside bomb blast in the southern Doura neighborhood, the Interior Ministry said, and two unidentified corpses were found floating in the Tigris River in Wasit, 60 miles south of Baghdad, morgue officials in nearby Kut said.