Lebanon rocked by bus bombs

Up to 12 people were killed today when explosions tore through two buses travelling north of Beirut. Lebanon's news agency reported that the blasts occurred in the village of Ein Alaq, just south of the town of Bikfaya. Arab media quoted Lebanese civil defence sources as saying at least 20 people were injured. Television footage showed at least one bus totally destroyed and ambulances carrying away people. Blood was pooled in several places near the bus wreckage. Troops in military uniforms and army buses were also at the scene.

The interior minister, Hassan al-Sabaa, said early information suggested that the bombs had exploded inside the minibuses. A government source told Reuters that the possibility of suicide bombings had not been ruled out. The driver of the first bus was among the dead. On seeing the explosion, the driver of the second bus was said to have got out of his vehicle and was wounded by the subsequent blast. The explosions come at a time of increased sectarian tensions in Lebanon, and one day before the second anniversary of the assassination of the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri. A mass rally had been planned for Wednesday in downtown Beirut to mark the killing of the Sunni politician. Al-Jazeera reported that the area where the explosions took place, 12 miles north-east of Beirut, was a Christian stronghold. The channel's reporter, Zeina Khodr, said the Christian community felt they were targets of sectarian attack. Bikfaya is the ancestral home of the Gemayel family, a prominent political Christian family in Lebanon. Pierre Gemayel, a cabinet member, was assassinated last November.


Appeals for urgent blood donations were broadcast as ambulances rushed casualties to hospitals in the region and in Beirut. The Voice Of Lebanon radio stations said the targeted buses were driving people to work.

NEW CYCLE OF VIOLENCE. WHEN WILL IT END?

Silent prayers. Then the inferno
One year of civil war marked by coordinated attacks killing 80 in Baghdad market The aftermath of a car bomb attack on Shorja market, Baghdad.

It was intended as a period of national reflection. A 15-minute pause at midday to mark the first anniversary of what many consider to be the spark that lit the fuse of Iraq's civil war. The bombing of the golden-domed Askariya shrine in Samarra last February by suspected Sunni militants killed no one - but since that day 33,929 Iraqi civilians have lost their lives in the ensuing violence.As Baghdad's clocks registered 12.20 yesterday, Iraq's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, appeared on state television to appeal for calm, for national unity and for an end to the violence that has devastated the country. But even as he spoke, the broadcast showed him blink and aides around him flinch with the force of a formidable explosion which thundered across the Tigris towards the prime minister's compound in the Green Zone. Secondary explosions resounded. Smoke billowed into the air. In the normally bustling Shorja market district dozens of people lay dead, burned beyond recognition, while dozens more were injured. Motorists were charred in their cars, shops were ripped apart and a seven-story building full of wholesale textile merchants was set ablaze. It burned all day. ( These powerful car bombs have all the Hallmark of Hezbollah trained operatives ) By last night the toll from the combined force of three car bombs stood at more than 80 dead, and almost 200 wounded.



Police said one car bomb had been parked near the entrance to a garage under the textile building. The blast set fire to hundreds of other parked vehicles. A second car bomb then hit the nearby Haraj market. The immediate surroundings were obliterated. Dozens of shops and stalls were razed and a wall of thick black smoke quickly blocked out the clear blue sky. Witnesses reported having difficulty distinguishing the bodies from the clothing mannequins that lay among the bloody debris. Rescuers used rolls of material to create makeshift stretchers and carry the dead and injured to ambulances, pick up trucks, or whatever vehicle could be commandeered. The emergency department at the nearby Kindi hospital was overwhelmed. Police said those not killed by the initial blasts lost their lives in the ensuing inferno.
One witness, Wathiq Ibrahim, said: "I saw three bodies shredded apart. Paramedics were picking up body pieces and flesh from the pools of blood on the ground and placing them in small plastic bags."The smoke turned the place dark," he told Reuters. For Youssef Ahmed, a veteran of the 1991 Gulf war, the dense smoke rising above the Shorja district brought back memories of the torching of Kuwait's oil fields by the fleeing Iraqi army. "I never thought I'd see sunlight eclipsed like that again," he said, standing about 50 metres away from the burning building. Ali Muhammad, a shop owner whose business was set on fire, killing of two of his workers, said: "I have lost everything - my colleagues, my livelihood, and any hope that my country can survive."

The latest atrocity came a week after Mr Maliki had ordered thousands of police and troops on to the street as part of a joint Iraqi and US security plan. Yesterday both Iraqi and US soldiers had also taken to the streets, adding checkpoints across the city in a show of force aimed at stopping sectarian violence in Baghdad. The American military is sending 21,000 additional troops to Iraq to assist in the crackdown. Mr Maliki had hoped to use the anniversary of the attack on the 9th century Shia shrine in Samarra to appeal to Iraqis to unite to end the violence.
"We have a great confidence that Iraqis have realised that no one has a future in this country if we don't terminate the terrorists," he said after the 15-minutes silence. He was joined by Shia leaders and other politicians urging calm.
The pre-eminent Shia leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said in a statement: "We call on the believers as they mark this sad occasion and express their feelings ... to exercise maximum levels of restraint and not to do or say anything which would harm our Sunni brothers who are innocent for what happened and who do not accept it."
On Monday, the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, called the bombing of the shrine "a crime against humanity and Islam together". "This horrible crime drives us to toward more solidarity and brotherhood," Mr Talabani said in a speech in Baghdad. "We will stay with you until we accomplish a secured, democratic, federal and stable Iraq away from the darkness of terrorism, dictatorship." By nightfall yesterday the fires were still burning in Shorja. Firefighters said that many bodies could still remain in the rubble of the destroyed buildings. "Watching this, I think it is like being in hell. Where is Mr Maliki? Will he visit this place?" said a bystander who gave his name only as Muhammad.

THE NEXT DAY : Suicide bomber targets Baghdad again

A suicide truck bomber struck a car park near a college in a mainly Shia area of western Baghdad today, killing at least nine people and wounding 19, police and hospital officials said.The attack occurred about 9.50am (6.50am BST) at the College of Economic Sciences as students were arriving for class at the campus in the Iskan district.The area is largely Shia, but the students come from a variety of religious backgrounds, including Shia and Sunni Muslims and some Christians.Police said they had also discovered a booby-trapped ambulance about 500 metres away and were trying to defuse it.The blast comes less than a day after coordinated attacks on a Baghdad market killed more than 80 people.