Ny Times - April 22nd 2004.
BASRA, Iraq, April 22 — As the authorities scoured the sites of five nearly simultaneous car bombings that killed dozens of people here on Wednesday, allied military officials said the attacks bore the hallmarks of the Qaeda terrorist network, but acknowledged they did not yet have proof.
spokesman for the British forces, which are responsible for the Basra area, lowered the death toll on Thursday to 50, including 20 children, after a closer review of hospital reports. That count is 18 less than the 68 dead reported by Basra's provincial governor shortly after the bombings. More than 100 people were injured, including four British soldiers.
Several hundred supporters of the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr marched in the streets on Thursday, Agence France-Presse reported, expressing anger and grief over the bombings that struck several Iraqi police buildings during the morning rush hour.
British officers said some bombs were suicide attacks and other were remotely detonated. The blasts charred children in a passing school bus. At least nine Iraqi police officers were killed.
Flying over Basra in a British Army Puma helicopter on Thursday afternoon, a visitor saw no street demonstrations. Traffic was light but moving briskly, and authorities said residents were struggling to cope with the deadly attacks, which shattered weeks of relative calm in this port city, Iraq's second largest.
"Basra, in many ways, has united," Maj. Gen. Andrew Stewart of the British Army, the commander of 14,000 allied troops in southern Iraq, said in an interview here. He said that city and regional council members, as well as tribal sheiks and police officials had urged renewed efforts not to allow the bombings to derail the political and economic rebuilding here.
"It was specifically targeted against the police," General Stewart said. "It was specifically targeted in Basra. I interpret the reason is that the police here have become capable and they're gaining in credibility with the local population at every turn."
General Stewart said it was too soon to tell if Al Qaeda or a Jordanian militant linked to Al Qaeda, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, bore responsibility for the attacks. He blamed only unidentified people from outside Basra. But American officials in Baghdad said the spectacular, synchronized attacks were characteristic of Al Qaeda or related terrorists.
United States officials have accused Mr. Zarqawi of helping plan two suicide bombings at Shiite shrines in Baghdad and Karbala on March 2, in which at least 181 people died. American intelligence officials say that Mr. Zarqawi's goal is to incite a civil war between Iraq's Shiite majority and the Sunni minority by conducting a series a attacks against Shiites.
On Wednesday, mobs shoved British soldiers away from burning wreckage, angry that allied troops had failed to protect them, while others ascribed the bombings to American or British missile strikes. A British helicopter had hovered over the scene to help coordinate emergency efforts, officers said.
BASRA, Iraq, April 22 — As the authorities scoured the sites of five nearly simultaneous car bombings that killed dozens of people here on Wednesday, allied military officials said the attacks bore the hallmarks of the Qaeda terrorist network, but acknowledged they did not yet have proof.
spokesman for the British forces, which are responsible for the Basra area, lowered the death toll on Thursday to 50, including 20 children, after a closer review of hospital reports. That count is 18 less than the 68 dead reported by Basra's provincial governor shortly after the bombings. More than 100 people were injured, including four British soldiers.
Several hundred supporters of the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr marched in the streets on Thursday, Agence France-Presse reported, expressing anger and grief over the bombings that struck several Iraqi police buildings during the morning rush hour.
British officers said some bombs were suicide attacks and other were remotely detonated. The blasts charred children in a passing school bus. At least nine Iraqi police officers were killed.
Flying over Basra in a British Army Puma helicopter on Thursday afternoon, a visitor saw no street demonstrations. Traffic was light but moving briskly, and authorities said residents were struggling to cope with the deadly attacks, which shattered weeks of relative calm in this port city, Iraq's second largest.
"Basra, in many ways, has united," Maj. Gen. Andrew Stewart of the British Army, the commander of 14,000 allied troops in southern Iraq, said in an interview here. He said that city and regional council members, as well as tribal sheiks and police officials had urged renewed efforts not to allow the bombings to derail the political and economic rebuilding here.
"It was specifically targeted against the police," General Stewart said. "It was specifically targeted in Basra. I interpret the reason is that the police here have become capable and they're gaining in credibility with the local population at every turn."
General Stewart said it was too soon to tell if Al Qaeda or a Jordanian militant linked to Al Qaeda, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, bore responsibility for the attacks. He blamed only unidentified people from outside Basra. But American officials in Baghdad said the spectacular, synchronized attacks were characteristic of Al Qaeda or related terrorists.
United States officials have accused Mr. Zarqawi of helping plan two suicide bombings at Shiite shrines in Baghdad and Karbala on March 2, in which at least 181 people died. American intelligence officials say that Mr. Zarqawi's goal is to incite a civil war between Iraq's Shiite majority and the Sunni minority by conducting a series a attacks against Shiites.
On Wednesday, mobs shoved British soldiers away from burning wreckage, angry that allied troops had failed to protect them, while others ascribed the bombings to American or British missile strikes. A British helicopter had hovered over the scene to help coordinate emergency efforts, officers said.
