Another Blast In Baghdad
This is certainly a downer:
A suicide bomber wearing a vest packed with explosives and ball bearings blew himself up at a Baghdad university today, killing at least 40 people and strewing fingers, pens, purses and bloody textbooks all over the ground.
The blast, at a campus of Mustansiriya University, was one of several bombs and explosions to hit Baghdad today, making it one of the worst days of violence since Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki announced a new security crackdown.
And an hour later, a new challenge emerged for the prime minister and the Baghdad security plan he has helped devise, and which has been widely praised as the most focused effort yet to reduce the city’s relentless bloodshed.
Moktada al-Sadr, the renegade Shiite cleric, condemned the plan in a signed statement declaring that it had no hope of success as long as American troops were involved. Read aloud to 1,000 shouting supporters in Sadr City, the large Shiite area near the site of the university blast, the statement called on Iraqi security forces to stop cooperating with the United States military.
“There is no good that can come from a security plan controlled by our enemies, the occupiers,” said the statement. “If you stay away from them, God will protect you from horror and harm. Make sure your plans are purely Iraqi and not sectarian.”
Mr. Sadr has long maintained public opposition to the American presence in Iraq, yet he has also expressed support for the security plan in recent weeks, ordering his militia not to fight when U.S. troops enter their neighborhoods. His latest comments come after weeks of cooperation with the plan and seem aimed at distancing himself from a plan that has yet to bring calm to the city.
Of course, this is horrible news, but if there is a silver lining on such a grim day, it is this: al-Sadr has definitively chosen sides, and there can be no reason not to target the coward (notice how his signed statement was read; that is, of course, because he is the guest of his Iranian taskmasters) and his militia with the full force of American arms.
Still, another bad day for the long-suffering people of Baghdad…
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