87 Dead In Iraq Attacks Over 100

87 Dead in Iraq Attacks, over 100 wounded
3 British Troops Killed

The Age reports that a suicide bomber in Musayyib killed at least 70 persons [according to late reports] on Saturday and wounded 82. The huge blast, at a gas station near a Shiite mosque in this town about an hour and a half’s drive south of Baghdad not far from the holy city of Karbala, also destroyed nine automobiles. The London Times reports that one father said, ‘ “After the bomb I went over there and found my son’s head. I could not find his body,” said Mohsen Jassim of his 18-year-old son. ‘

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports that a judge of Kurdish ancestry, Nur al-Din Ahmad, was assassinated Saturday in the southern Shiite city of Nasiriyah, breaking that city’s relative calm.

Reuters reports other violence on Saturday:

The other attacks killed about 17 persons.

‘ A suicide bomber struck a police patrol in al-Dura, a southern district of Baghdad. He killed 2 policemen and 2 civilians, and wounded 10.’

Other attacks stretched from Mosul in the north to Amara in the Shiite south. In Amarah, three British troops were killed. Credit was taken by an obscure group with a Shiite name, but it is probably just a front for radical Salafis like Zarqawi’s group.

Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari is visiting Iran. He has brought 10 cabinet ministers, and deals will be done on the economy, petroleum refining, and border security. The Sunni Arabs are worried that a strong Shiite Iraq/ Iran nexis will harm their interests.