29 Dead 25 Wounded In Interior

29 Dead, 25 Wounded in Interior Ministry Bombing

Two guerrillas with suicide bomb belts attacked the Ministry of the Interior in Baghdad on Monday during a celebration there of National Police Day. They killed 29 and wounded at least 25 (al-Hayat). US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad was on the premises, as were Minister of the Interior Bayan Jabr and Defense Minister Saadoun Dulaimi. The bombers, dressed in police uniforms, were unable to get into the building, but the bombs went off at the threshold. How close this operation came to inflicting massive damage on the new government and its personnel is obvious from the details so far released.

Al-Hayat says that [Ar.]: the Zarqawi group or someone claiming to speak for them posted a message to the internet saying that they were taking revenge for the Sunni Muslims who had been tortured by special police commandos of the (Shiite dominated) Ministry of the Interior. The message also called on the Iraqi Islamic Party to withdraw from civil politics. (The IIP is part of the fundamentalist Sunni National Accord Front, which probably gained around 30 seats in parliament). The message said that they refrained from bombings during the Dec. 15 elections because they were afraid of inadvertently harming Sunnis. It called on young men in neighboring Muslim countries, including Yemen, to come to Iraq to fight the jihad or holy war.

Jordan closed its border with Iraq on Monday at the request of Iraqi authorities.

The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Iran-linked Shiite fundamentalist group, has not only ensconced itself in the Ministry of the Interior but also, according to the CSM, in the Iraqi public television channel. Well, at least Ken Tomlinson doesn’t have to monitor it for liberal bias.

Iran is constructing electricity transmission lines into Iraq in preparation for selling the latter country electricity. Those terrible Iranians! How dare they be helpful this way? It will confuse President Bush. Aren’t they supposed to be in the Axis?

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said Monday that any partition of Iraq could bring “unimaginable chaos” to the Middle East.

Historian Gary Leupp says that the Neocons actually considered using the Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon to plant false WMD evidence in Iraq once it transpired that Iraq had none.

Everywhere you dig in this administration, you find bodies.