Dozens Killed in New Iraq Bombing
24/07/2005| IslamWeb
A bomber in a flatbed truck laden with 500 lbs of explosives has killed up at least 29 people and wounded 30 others outside a Baghdad police station, Iraqi police said.
But the US military said more than 40 civilians were killed in the explosion in the Mashtal area of eastern Baghdad.
Twenty-two cars and a building were set on fire, and firefighters on Sunday still were trying to douse the blaze.
Meanwhile, members of former prime minister Ayad Allawi's bloc have threatened to walk out of the constitutional drafting committee in support of a Sunni group that had boycotted the process.
Committee member Adnan al-Janabi, who is also part of secular leader Allawi's eight-member bloc, criticized the way the commission had dealt with the Sunni members' decision to suspend their participation in drafting the new charter.
Al-Janabi, who is also a spokesman for Allawi's group, said the bloc's continued participation remains in question.
"Our continuation in the committee drafting the constitution has become dependent on getting clarifications to what we have asked earlier," al-Janabi said.
Sunni boycott
The mixed make-up of the committee was deemed crucial for drafting a constitution acceptable to all of Iraq's ethnic and religious communities, a key to any political exit from the unremitting violence and the need for American troops to remain in Iraq.
If Allawi's secular group joins the Sunnis in pulling out of the process, it raises the concern that a committee already dominated by Shia religious parties and ethnic Kurds would be left in control of drafting the charter.
Al-Janabi expressed anger over commission chairman Shaikh Humam Hammudi's announcement that a draft would be ready within days, saying it was "a draft that we were not consulted about and I don't know how it was written or who wrote it".
On Thursday, the 12 remaining Sunni members of the commission suspended their participation to protest against the assassination of Sunni member Mijbil Isa and adviser Dhamim Husayn al-Ubaidi by unknown armed men. Two of the original 15 Sunni members had resigned earlier over threats against them.
They had demanded an international investigation into the killings, better security and a greater Sunni role in deliberations.
Latest constitution hurdle
On Sunday, no Sunni members showed up at a planned constitutional meeting, though the group had indicated a day earlier that it was considering a return.
Shia member Baha al-Araji said no decision will be taken "without the presence of the brothers (Sunnis) unless there is a reason for the absence. Therefore the committee will be committed to handing over the draft at the time agreed upon".
The threatened walkout by Allawi's group is the latest hurdle in the commission's goal of getting a constitution drafted and approved by the assembly on 15 August. That charter would then be scheduled for a public referendum two months later.
Voters in only three of the 18 provinces can scuttle the constitution if they reject it by two-thirds majority in the October referendum.
Violence goes on
Elsewhere, scattered attacks around the capital on Sunday left three dead, including two police officers, while a police lieutenant colonel was killed in northern Iraq, police and hospital officials said.
Also, a Baghdad city employee was seriously wounded in a drive-by shooting as he headed to work on Sunday and a former member of a local city council was shot and killed on Saturday night in front of his home in a town north of the capital, officials said
PHOTO CAPTION
Bodies are removed from the scene of a truck bomb explosion outside the Rashad police station Sunday, July 24, 2005, in the eastern neighborhood of Mashtal, Baghdad, Iraq. (AP)