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Iraqis voice anger at security plan after bombs | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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A resident holds a burnt copy of Quran found at the scene of the previous days car bomb attack at the Sadriyah market in Baghdad, Iraq, April 19, 2007 (AP)


A resident holds a burnt copy of Quran found at the scene of the previous days car bomb attack at the Sadriyah market in Baghdad, Iraq, April 19, 2007 (AP)

A resident holds a burnt copy of Quran found at the scene of the previous days car bomb attack at the Sadriyah market in Baghdad, Iraq, April 19, 2007 (AP)

BAGHDAD, (Reuters) – War-weary Iraqis vented their anger at a Baghdad security plan on Thursday, a day after almost 200 people were killed in attacks, including a truck bombing, the deadliest in the capital since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Suspected Sunni al Qaeda militants detonated a string of bombs in mostly Shi’ite areas of Baghdad on Wednesday. It was the worst day of violence in the city since the plan to stop Iraq from sliding into civil war was launched in February.

U.S. military spokesman Major General William Caldwell said initial indications were that the attacks were linked to al Qaeda and were coordinated to occur in a short period of time. “They are trying to destroy the confidence of the people as they sense that security is improving,” Caldwell said. “The government is talking about the security plan but dozens of people are dying every day. No one is protecting us,” Sabah Haider, 42, told Reuters as he stood beside a dozen incinerated minibuses in Sadriya, scene of the bloodiest attack, which killed 140 people.

Rahim Ali, also in Sadriya, said: “The Americans say they are here to protect the Iraqi people but they are doing nothing”.

Smoke still billowed from the debris and sandals and glass littered the ground. Many residents cursed the Shi’ite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for failing to protect them.

Maliki said on Wednesday Iraqis would take security control of the whole country from foreign forces by the end of the year.

The Baghdad security plan, which calls for 30,000 extra U.S. troops and thousands of Iraqi soldiers to be deployed mostly in Baghdad, has cut the number of sectarian murders blamed on Shi’ite militias.

But it has so far failed to curb car bombs and other large-scale attacks blamed on Sunni Islamist al Qaeda, raising fears of a new outbreak of reprisals, especially among the Mehdi Army militia of anti-U.S. Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

The militia, blamed for widespread killings of Sunni Arabs after a Shi’ite shrine in Samarra was destroyed in February 2006, has so far kept a low profile during the crackdown.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in Tel Aviv on Wednesday the bombers were trying to disrupt national reconciliation and expressed fears Shi’ites could be losing patience with Maliki’s government and U.S. forces. “We can only hope that the Shi’ites will have the confidence in their government and in the coalition that we will go after the people that perpetrated this horror,” Gates said.

Maliki, from Iraq’s majority Shi’ite community, is under pressure to say when foreign forces will leave Iraq. Six Sadrist ministers withdrew from his government on Monday. But the attacks in mainly Shi’ite areas of Baghdad underscored the challenges for Iraqi forces in taking charge of overall security from more than 150,000 U.S. and British troops.

Hours before the bombings, at a ceremony marking the handover of the fourth province of Iraq’s 18 provinces from U.S.-led troops to Iraqis, Maliki had again appealed for reconciliation between Shi’ites and the once-dominant Sunnis.

Maliki ordered the arrest late on Wednesday of the Iraqi army commander in charge of security in Sadriya for failing to secure the area.

Brigadier Qassim Moussawi, the Iraqi spokesman for the Baghdad security plan, said the attack in Sadriya was carried out by a truck bomb.

Iraqis gather at the site of a car bomb explosion in Baghdad's Sadr City, 18 April 2007 (AFP)

Iraqis gather at the site of a car bomb explosion in Baghdad’s Sadr City, 18 April 2007 (AFP)

An Iraqi woman mourns the death of her son outside a hospital in Baghdad's impoverished district of Sadr City, early 19 April (AFP)

An Iraqi woman mourns the death of her son outside a hospital in Baghdad’s impoverished district of Sadr City, early 19 April (AFP)