Suicide Car Bomber Kills 18 Iraqi Kids

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A suicide car bomb exploded next to U.S. troops handing out candy and toys, killing 18 children and teenagers Wednesday. Parents heard the shattering explosion and raced out to the discover the worst - children's mangled, bloodied bodies strewn on the street.

Up to 27 people were killed by the blast in the Shiite Muslim neighborhood, including an American soldier. At least 70 people were injured, a newborn and three U.S. soldiers among them.

Children's slippers lay piled near the blast crater not far from a crumbled child's bicycle as blood pooled in the street.

Twelve of the dead were 13 or younger and six were between 14 and 17, said police Lt. Mohammed Jassim Jabr. Among the wounded was 4-day-old Miriam Jabber, cut slightly by flying glass and debris.


``There were some American troops blocking the highway when a U.S. Humvee came near a gathering of children,'' said Karim Shukir, 42. The troops began handing out candy and smiley-face key chains.

``Suddenly, a speeding car bomb...struck both the Humvee and the children,'' Shukir said.

The slaughter of so many Shiite children is likely to raise tensions further between the majority Shiites - who dominate the government - and the minority Sunni Arabs, the foundation of the insurgency.

A man wearing an explosives belt and a suicide car bomb both detonated Thursday second apart near a police station in central Baghdad, wounding at least nine, police and hospital officials said. Police said they shot dead a third attacker wearing an explosive belt at the same location, just outside the Green Zone where the U.S. Embassy and government offices are located.

In Washington, the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, warned that both foreign terrorists and Iraqi insurgents linked to Saddam Hussein's Baath party were trying to foment civil war.

``The foreign terrorists ... see the Iraqi people, including Iraqi children, as cannon fodder to be sacrificed in the pursuit of an extremist agenda of conflict between civilizations,'' Khalilzad told reporters. ``Hard-line Baathists want a civil war as a vehicle to restore their dictatorship, and if they cannot win power, to take Iraq down with them.''

At Kindi hospital, where many victims were taken, a distraught mother swathed in black sat cross-legged outside the operating room. ``May God curse the mujahedeen and their leader,'' she cried, referring to the insurgents as she pounded her head with her fists in grief.

``The car bomber made a deliberate decision to attack one of our vehicles as the soldiers were engaged in a peaceful operation with Iraqi citizens,'' said Maj. Russ Goemaere, a Task Force Baghdad spokesman.

``The terrorist undoubtedly saw the children,'' Goemaere said, calling the attack ``absolutely abhorrent.''

After the bombing, charred remains of an engine block wrapped in barbed wire sat on the road. U.S. and Iraqi troops broadcast messages by loudspeakers in Arabic, warning civilians not to approach military vehicles.

An elderly woman dressed in black beat her chest in front of her house. Others meandered about in the broiling heat, seeming dazed.

In Washington, White House press secretary Scott McClellan strongly condemned the bombing, saying it showed insurgents ``have no regard for innocent, human life whether it's men, women or children.''

At least 1,759 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003.

At least 983 people have been killed by car bombers or suicide bombers on foot since the new government was announced on April 28, according to an Associated Press count. At least 2,633 have been wounded in those attacks.

In September 2004, 35 Iraqi children were killed as bombs exploded while American troops handed out candy at a government-sponsored celebration to inaugurate a Baghdad sewage plant. It marked the largest death toll of children in an insurgent attack since the Iraq conflict began.

Later Wednesday, about 200 people turned out for the funeral of five victims, in keeping with Muslim tradition to bury the dead quickly. The crowd shouted ``Allahu akbar!'' - ``God is great - and some fired weapons in the air.

The bomber used a brown Toyota Land Cruiser with a license plate from the southern city of Basra, police said.

It was the second major suicide bombing in Baghdad this week. A suicide bomber killed 25 people Sunday at an army recruiting center.

In a separate Baghdad attack Wednesday, a roadside bomb exploded near an American patrol, killing a 7-year-old child and seriously wounding a woman, police said.

Last Friday, Maj. Gen. William G. Webster Jr., commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, said American and Iraqi troops soldiers have ``mostly eliminated'' the ability of insurgents to conduct sustained, high-intensity attacks in the capital.

However, U.S. and Iraqi authorities acknowledge eliminating such attacks entirely is all but impossible.

U.S. officials have urged the Shiites in government to reach out to the Sunnis, believing only a political strategy can end the insurgency.

But a negotiated solution has proved difficult as mainstream Sunni groups complain of brutality by Shiite-dominated security forces. Sunni Arabs are believed to comprise about 20 percent of the country's 27 million people.

Early Wednesday, Iraqi security forces stormed several houses across Baghdad, detaining, torturing and killing 11 Sunni Arab men, including a cleric, the Sunni clerical Association of Muslim Scholars said.

The bodies were found later in the day in a Shiite neighborhood, said an association official, Sheik Hassan Sabri Salman. The government's Sunni Endowments, which cares for Sunni mosques, also reported the deaths.

Sunni groups also accused security forces of allowing at least nine Sunnis detained last weekend to die after locking them for hours in a van without ventilation as temperatures soared to 115 degrees.

The Iraqi Interior Ministry said both allegations are being investigated, and if true, those responsible will be punished.

Also Wednesday, at least three Iraqi soldiers were killed in two shootouts in Baghdad.







Autopsy Confirms Toddler Killed by LAPD

By GREG RISLING

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A toddler whose father held her as a shield during a gun battle with police died of a single gunshot fired from a police officer's rifle, authorities said Wednesday.

Los Angeles County coroner's spokesman Craig Harvey released the autopsy reports of 19-month-old Suzie Pena and her father Jose Pena, 34, who were both killed Sunday in the hours-long shootout at Pena's auto repair business.

The girl died from a single gunshot wound to the head, and her father died of multiple gunshot wounds, the reports said.

A toxicological examination to determine whether Pena had drugs or alcohol in his system will take several weeks, Harvey said.

``Our hearts, prayers, thoughts go out to the family, particularly the mother,'' Police Chief William Bratton said at a news conference Wednesday.

Although Bratton has adamantly maintained that Pena was responsible for his and his daughter's deaths, he said the realization that it was a police officer who actually shot the girl was hard to take.


``Believe me, as chief of police, and for the officers involved, it is very tough to deal with that,'' Bratton said.

Luis Carrillo, one of the attorney's representing the girl's family, said the autopsy results did not come as any surprise.

``It only confirmed their worst fears,'' Carrillo said. ``The family has been in shock since their little angel was taken from them, and it's compounded by the fact by those officers who are there to protect us weren't able to protect this girl.''

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said there will be a community meeting on Friday and urged people to reserve judgment until the investigation is completed.

``I am asking for the public's patience,'' he said. ``It was a terrible night that ended in a terrible tragedy for this city.''

Ultimately, the police chief said, he expects an investigation now under way will clear all of the officers involved in the gun battle.

``In the 38-year history of SWAT, I believe this is the first instance in which an innocent life in a hostage situation was taken by them,'' Bratton said. ``That situation is compounded by the age of this young child.''

The two were killed Sunday evening after a nearly three-hour standoff in which Pena exchanged gunfire with officers three separate times.

One officer was wounded in the shoulder during the third and final exchange between SWAT officers and Pena. Officer Daniel Sanchez, 39, has been released from a hospital and was recovering at home, police said.

Police said Pena told them during the standoff that he was not going to go to jail and shot at the officers repeatedly. Pena's 17-year-old stepdaughter, who escaped during the shootout, told police Pena had threatened to kill his toddler daughter. Earlier in the day, Pena's wife had called 911 to report that he had threatened her life.

Pena's brother complained Tuesday about the police handling of the standoff.

``It's been cruel what's happened to my brother,'' German Pena said. ``They didn't have any patience, none at all, knowing that my niece was with him, that he was a father. They should have acted with more patience.''

Associated Press Writer Jeff Wilson contributed to this report.