Baghdad, Iraq – At least 73 people were killed and 162 wounded early today when a suicide bomber detonated his vehicle near a group of construction workers in north Baghdad, police said.
The blast occurred at 6:30 a.m. near a crowd of day laborers who had assembled before going to work on nearby construction sites, said police Maj. Musa Abdel Kerim. He said the suicide driver drove his car into the gathering before detonating the explosive charge.
The number of fatalities was expected to rise because some of the wounded were unlikely to survive, Lt. Col. Moayad Zubair said.
The population of the Kazimiyah district, site of the blast, is almost entirely Shiite.
Sunni militants have mounted a series of attacks on the Shiites in an apparent effort to provoke retaliation and a sectarian conflict.
Two weeks ago, nearly 1,000 people were killed in a stampede on a nearby bridge during a Shiite religious procession. Many were trampled and crushed to death, but others drowned after falling 30 feet into the Tigris River.
Also early today, gunmen wearing military uniforms surrounded a village north of Baghdad and executed 17 men, police said. Police Lt. Waleed al-Hayali said the gunmen detained the victims after searching the village. They were handcuffed and blindfolded and were later shot.
On Tuesday, in an attempt to lay the legal groundwork for asking the United States to withdraw its troops, an Iraqi National Assembly committee released a report that said the presence of the American military prevents Iraq from becoming fully sovereign.
The 18-member National Sovereignty Committee, made up of legislators chosen in national elections in January, said the only way Iraq could achieve sovereignty was for multinational forces to leave.
The report called for setting a timetable for the troops to go home and referred to them as “occupation forces,” a first.
The report is the second time in four months that National Assembly members have expressed frustration with the continued American military presence.
In June, one-third of the 275 assembly members signed a petition asking the United States to set a timetable for withdrawal.
It wasn’t clear what impact the new report would have. Iraqi government officials have said they oppose a U.S. withdrawal or setting a timetable, a position that President Jalal Talabani repeated Tuesday in Washington.
“We will set no timetable for withdrawal. A timetable will help the terrorists,” said Talabani, who’s a Kurd.
Most of the committee members are members of the Shiite Muslim political coalition that dominated January’s parliamentary elections.
Knight Ridder Newspapers contributed to this report.
