BAGHDAD — A car bomb in a sleepy southern Iraq town killed at least 30 people and wounded another 65 on Wednesday, police and witnesses said. The blast prompted angry accusations from residents that local authorities had failed to keep them safe.
The explosives in a car parked by a street market detonated about 9:30 a.m. as shoppers packed the indoor shops and stalls in Bathaa, about 20 miles northwest of Nasiriyah.
“I was astonished that such an incident actually happened here,” said resident Wael Thageel. “It’s the first of its kind; maybe in Nasiriyah or Baghdad, but never here. This is a quiet, peaceful town.”
An angry crowd gathered after the blast and denounced security officials for not preventing the attack. One person was wounded when police broke up the protest by firing warning shots, said a police officer from Nasiriyah.
The officer added that the Bathaa police chief had been suspended and an investigation had been ordered by the police commander of Dhi Qar province. He denied reports on Iraqi television that the chief had been fired by the provincial governor.
Bathaa is filled with Shiite Muslim tribesmen who formerly lived in Kuwait. Goat-herding is one of the main occupations. Political life in the district has been dominated by the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq, a Shiite party.
After the blast, locals inspected the remains of the car: a charred gray frame, shorn of its roof, doors and windows. Tattered clothing belonging to the dead and wounded littered the ground. Some started to pick up the twisted, blackened debris.
The explosion came less than three weeks before U.S. forces are scheduled to turn over responsibility for security in cities to Iraqi forces and pull back into the countryside.
While American troops have a far more low-key presence in the calmer Shiite south, Iraqis are nervous ahead of the transition. They wonder whether the country risks falling back into the cycle of escalating sectarian violence that threatened to splinter the nation in 2006 and 2007.
