CBS NEWS
eople inspect a car destroyed in a car bomb attack close to one of the main gates to the heavily-fortified Green Zone, which houses major government offices and the embassies of several countries, including the United States and Britain in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, March 19, 2013.
(CBS NEWS) -- A wave of bombings tore through the Baghdad area Tuesday, killing 57
people on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion and
showing how unstable Iraq remains more than a year after the withdrawal
of American troops.
Violence has ebbed sharply since the
peak of Sunni-Shiite fighting that pushed the country to the brink of
civil war in 2006-2007. But insurgents maintain the ability to stage
high-profile attacks while sectarian and ethnic rivalries continue to
tear at the fabric of national unity.
The symbolism of
Tuesday's attacks was strong, coming 10 years to the day that Washington
launched the invasion with a "shock and awe" campaign of airstrikes on
March 19, 2003 - before dawn the following day in Iraq.
Tuesday's
attacks were mostly by car bombs and targeted mainly Shiite areas,
small restaurants, day laborers and bus stops in the Iraqi capital and
nearby towns over a span of more than two hours.
Along with 57 killed, over 200 people were wounded in the attacks, officials said.
The bombings came 10 years to the day that Washington announced the
start of the invasion on March 19, 2003 - though by that time it was
already the following morning in Iraq. A new CBS News poll found 54
percent of Americans say going to war with Iraq was not the right thing
to do. Nearly 7 in ten backed the war when it started.
Also
on Tuesday, Iraq's Cabinet decided to postpone upcoming provincial
elections in two provinces dominated by the country's minority Sunnis
for up to six months. The decision followed requests from the political
blocs in the provinces, according to the prime minister's spokesman, Ali
al-Moussawi.
The two provinces affected, Anbar and
Ninevah, have been at the center of the nearly three-month-long protests
against Iraq's Shiite-led government. Provincial elections were
scheduled for April 20.
One of the deadliest of Tuesday's
attacks struck close to one of the main gates to the heavily-fortified
Green Zone, which houses major government offices and the embassies of
several countries, including the United States and Britain. That blast
outside a restaurant killed six people, including two soldiers, and
wounded more than 15. Thick black smoke could be seen rising from the
area as ambulances raced to the scene.
There was no
immediate claim of responsibility for the blasts, but the attacks bore
hallmarks of al Qaeda in Iraq. The terror group favors spectacular,
coordinated bombings intended to undermine public confidence in the
Shiite-led government.
Police
and hospital officials who provided accounts of the days' bloodshed
reported the most casualties from a car bombing near the Ministry of
Labor and Social Affairs in Baghdad's eastern Qahira neighborhood at
around 10 a.m. That blast killed seven people and wounded 21.
The
officials provide casualty numbers on condition of anonymity because
they were not authorized to release the information to journalists.
The
violence started at around 8 a.m., when a bomb exploded outside a
popular restaurant in Baghdad's Mashtal neighborhood, killing four
people and wounding 15. It blew out the eatery's windows and left
several cars mangled in the blood-streaked street.
Minutes
later, two day laborers were killed and eight were wounded when a
roadside bomb hit the place where they gather every day in an area of
New Baghdad.
The sprawling Shiite slum district of Sadr
City was hit by three explosions that killed 10 people, including three
commuters on a minibus.
Hussein Abdul-Khaliq, a
government employee who lives in Sadr city, said he heard the explosion
and went out to find the minibus on fire.
"We helped take
some trapped women and children from outside the burning bus before the
arrival of the rescue teams. Our clothes were covered with blood as we
tried to rescue the trapped people or to move out the bodies," he said.
"Today's attacks are new proof that the politicians and security officials are a huge failure," he said.
Other
attacks struck the largely Shiite neighborhoods of Hussainiyah,
Zafarniyah, Shula and Utaifiya, as well as the Sunni district of
Tarmiyah.
Just outside the capital, a mortar shell landed
near a clinic in the town of Taji, killing two people and wounding
five. And about 30 miles south of Baghdad, in Iskandiriyah, a car bomb
exploded near a bus stop, killing five people and wounding 20.
Tuesday's
attacks came a day after insurgents killed nine people, including a
bombing by a suicide attacker who killed five when he drove an
explosives-laden car into a checkpoint in the central Iraqi town of
Balad Ruz.
Al Qaeda's Iraq arm, which operates under the
name the Islamic State of Iraq, has sought to reassert its presence in
recent weeks.
Last week, the group claimed responsibility
for a highly coordinated attack earlier this month in far western Iraq
that killed nine Iraqis and 51 Syrian soldiers who had sought temporary
refuge in the country.
And on Sunday, al Qaeda's Iraq
branch took responsibility for a brazen and again highly coordinated
raid on the Justice Ministry in downtown Baghdad last week. The attack,
involving car bombs and gunmen disguised as police, killed at least 24
people.