An Iraqi mother screams after learning her son was killed in one of the three massive car bombs that exploded at a main bus station and a hospital in Baghdad, August 17, 2005 (AP)
BAGHDAD (Agencies) – Three car bombs killed at least 43 people in a coordinated attack on a Baghdad bus station in the morning rush hour on Wednesday, ending a lull in insurgent attacks as Iraqi leaders resumed talks on a new constitution.
At least 43 people were killed and 88 wounded, an official in the Interior Ministry said, adding: "There are charred bodies all over the place."
Police and medics were among the dead, struck by the third bomb, between the bus station and the nearby Kindi hospital as victims of the earlier blasts were being taken there. At least three policemen were among the dead and 10 were wounded.
One witness said a bus about to depart for Iraq”s second city of Basra, in the Shi”ite south, had been incinerated by the blast and it appeared many passengers were killed.
The multiple explosions suggested an attack by one of the Islamist radical groups active in the Sunni Arab insurgency against the U.S.-backed, Shi”ite-led government.
Police sources insisted that, unlike many attacks by groups like al Qaeda, none of the cars were driven by a suicide bomber.
The U.S. military said, however, two suicide drivers took part. As has become typical in the confusion of Iraqi violence, it was not possible to reconcile all the versions of events.
Iraq state television interrupted TV shows, in which angry citizens called in comments on the attacks, to announce four suspects had been caught in the possession of bomb equipment.
It was the first attack of this scale in Baghdad for nearly a month and occurred hours before politicians were to resume efforts to resolve deadlock on a new constitution, following their failure to produce a draft by Monday”s midnight deadline.
Parliament gave leaders of rival sectarian and ethnic groups a further week to settle their differences.
Sectarian and ethnic divisions over the extent to which regions should have autonomy and control over oil and other resources remain at the heart of the dispute, negotiators said.
A Shi”ite parliamentarian close to the talks said a document was in circulation that the parties were studying. "The constitution will be done before the week ends," he said, adding Kurdish politicians had reservations about some points.
Saleh al-Mutlak, a negotiator from the Sunni minority that dominated Iraq under Saddam Hussein, said his group still opposed provisions that might give Islamist Shi”ites control over the southern oilfields and allow Kurds to expand their region”s boundaries to annexe the oil resources of the north.
Tensions are high between Arabs, Kurds and ethnic Turkmen in the northern oil capital of Kirkuk, where gunmen killed six
Iraqi soldiers as they drove to work on Wednesday.
Yonadem Kanna, a Christian member of the drafting panel, said some Sunni Islamist parties were prepared to compromise on federalism, but he doubted that the secular nationalists headed by Mutlak would give ground.
"The Sunni Arabs will never agree. It is against the culture of Iraq as they knew it before," Kanna said.
U.S. officials say a constitution deal could weaken the insurgency and allow some troops to leave. Militants have threatened to kill Sunni leaders who join the U.S.-sponsored political process and to continue their campaign come what may.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in remarks more critical than those of President George W. Bush, called the delay in drafting a new constitution "not helpful".
"I think we are seeing progress in all aspects in Iraq,"
General Richard Myers, Washington”s most senior general, told reporters during a visit to Baghdad.
The first two bombs, shortly before 8 a.m. (0400 GMT), sent black smoke billowing into a clear sky. One went off near an entrance to the Nahda bus station, a hub for destinations across Iraq. The second exploded inside a few minutes later.
About quarter of an hour after that, as police and medics were moving casualties to Kindi hospital nearby, the third bomb detonated, killing some of those who had come to help.
"We heard an explosion in the garage, we went there and ran towards the buses for Kut, Basra and Amara," witness Ahmed Jabur told Reuters at the scene. "A coach blew up. When we were leaving, another one blew up in the middle of police cars."
Unrelated, but indicative of the mood of a nation, scarred by violence, President Jalal Talabani said judicial executions would resume for the first time since the fall of Saddam; three men convicted of murder and rape are to be hanged.
U.S. President George W. Bush supports capital punishment but the decision is awkward for his European allies in Iraq, which oppose the death penalty. Britain would lobby the Iraqi government to scrap it, a British diplomat said.
On Thursday, lawmakers tried to reach compromises with Sunni Arab leaders in the country”s draft constitution.
Government officials said that Wednesday”s bombings, two believed to have been suicide attacks and the third a stationary car bomb, were an attempt to target Shiites and stoke civil war between religious groups in the country.
"They targeted an area that has a population of people from southern Shiite provinces, and their message was that their government is unable to protect you from us," government spokesman Laith Kubba said. "They want a reaction against Sunnis to therefore deepen the sectarian crisis in the country."
Kubba said flyers had recently been handed out in some Baghdad neighborhoods threatening Shiites if they did not leave the city. At least one person, a Sunni Arab woman married to a Shiite, had been killed after the threats, he said.
Kubba also said four suspects arrested on suspicion of being involved in the attack the prior day had been released after questioning.
As the constitutional talks began, one Sunni Arab lawmaker expressed confidence that remaining differences would be resolved in time for the Monday deadline.
"I expect that the constitution would be finished before Monday. Negotiations are still underway and everybody are determined to finish it before the deadline," said Saleh al-Mutlaq, a Sunni member of the constitutional committee. However, such optimistic talk was widespread here last week before parliament Monday night extended the deadline by one week after the negotiators said they had failed to reach an accord.
On Wednesday, the country”s largest Sunni political group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, issued a blistering attack on the drafting committee, accusing it of bias and incompetence. The party said major differences remain on the same issues that blocked a deal last week.
Lawmakers said the unresolved differences included federalism, the role of the Shiite clergy and the distribution of Iraq”s vast oil wealth. The Sunnis also want the new constitution to affirm the country”s Arab and Islamic identity and that Islam be declared a main source in legislation.
Once the draft is approved by parliament, it will be submitted to the voters in a referendum Oct. 15. If two-thirds of the voters in three of the 18 provinces reject the constitution, it will be defeated. Sunnis form the majority in at least four provinces.
Elsewhere, the lawyer for Tariq Aziz, a former deputy prime minister, foreign minister and top lieutenant of Saddam Hussein, claimed Thursday his client could be released soon because of legal missteps by the Iraqi tribunal set up to prosecute former regime figures.
"I expect some relief for detainees and I expect that Tariq Aziz might be released because there are no charges against him, along with many detainees," said lawyer Badee Izzat Aref.
The government did not confirm the statement.
Under Iraqi law, formal charges are not laid until a preliminary investigation has been completed. Suspects can be held while the investigation is continuing. Violence continued Thursday.
Insurgents threw a hand grenade at an Iraqi patrol in central Fallujah, wounding two troops, police 1st Lt. Jassim Ouwaid said. The attack came one day after a car bombing killed three people in the city that was once an insurgent stronghold before a U.S. offensive retook the city in November of last year.
In the capital, an Iraqi judge and his driver were killed Thursday by gunmen, police said. In the central city of Baqouba, gunmen killed a former Iraqi Army colonel and his son in an ambush late Wednesday, police said. One of the colonel”s sons was also kidnapped in the ambush, police said.
An officer in the Interior Ministry was killed by gunmen late Wednesday in Baghdad, police 1st Lt. Mautaz Salahden said.
An Iraqi soldier guards the scene of a car bombing in the Al-Nahda bus station which links the capital with the predominantly Shiite regions to the south of Baghdad 17 August 2005 (AFP)
An Iraqi boy cries after he learns his father, a bus driver, was killed in two massive car bombs that exploded at a main bus station, Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2005, in Baghdad, Iraq (AP)