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Baghdad - A suicide bomber killed at least 135 people on
Saturday, Feb 3, 2007, in the deadliest single bombing in Iraq since the
2003 war, driving a truck laden with one ton of explosives
into a market in a mainly Shi'ite area of Baghdad.
Police said 305 people were wounded. The casualties swamped
the capital's hospitals. There were chaotic scenes at Ibn
al- Nafis hospital in central Baghdad, where hallways
overflowed with wounded on trolleys.
"It was a terrible scene. Many shops and houses were
destroyed," said one resident, Jassem, 42, who rushed from
his home to help pull people from the rubble after hearing
the explosion that rocked central Baghdad.
"I was in my shop and there was a great explosion and the
roof fell in on me. I woke up here in hospital," said one
man at the hospital with blood streaming down his face.
Emergency workers dragged bodies from the debris and piled
them on pickup trucks, a Reuters reporter at the scene said.
The incident comes as the "new strategy" of the Bush
administration is about to begin, with a "surge" of over
20,000 more American troops being sent to Iraq to help the government
stabilize Baghdad.
The formal test was set for a period of 5 hours beginning at
19:00 local time (16:00-21:00 UTC), which probably includes
some time, perhaps as much as one hour, before the bombing.
The result is Chisquare = 18223.021 on 18000 df for
p = 0.120 and Z = 1.174.
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