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The 22 January 2007 Baghdad bombings was a terrorist attack that occured when two powerful car bombs ripped through the Bab al-Sharqi market in central Baghdad, killing at least 88 people and wounding 160 others in one of the bloodiest days since the US invasion of Iraq. The attack occurred two days after the start of the 10-day Shiite festival leading up to Ashoura. Image File history File links Current_event_marker. ... Baghdad (Arabic ) is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate. ... Shī‘a Islam, also Shi‘ite Islam, or Shi‘ism (Arabic ) is the second largest denomination of the Islamic faith. ... January 22 is the 22nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD (or CE) era. ... ... Car bomb in Iraq, made from a number of concealed artillery shells in the back of a pickup truck. ... January 22 is the 22nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD (or CE) era. ... Car bomb in Iraq, made from a number of concealed artillery shells in the back of a pickup truck. ... Baghdad (Arabic ) is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate. ... For other uses of the term, see Iraq war (disambiguation) The 2003 invasion of Iraq (also called the 2nd or 3rd Persian Gulf War) began on March 20, 2003, when forces belonging primarily to the United States and the United Kingdom invaded Iraq without the explicit backing of the United... Shi‘as (the adjective in Arabic is شيعى shi‘i; English has traditionally used Shiite) which mean follower in Arabic make up the second largest sect of believers in Islam, constituting about 30%-35% of all Muslim. ... The Day of Aashurah, sometimes spelled ‘Ashurah or Aashoorah, falls on the 10th day of Muharram in the Islamic calendar. ...

Details

The blasts at the Baghdad market were aimed at a Shiite area and seemed timed to inflict maximum damage, occurring at noon local time, which is one of the busiest times of the day. Police officials said the blasts were so large that each of the cars carried more than 200 pounds of explosives. The explosions could be heard from the eastern banks of the nearby Tigris River. In the aftermath, the large number of bodies required workers to stack them on top of one another in wooden carts, while other victims were simply blown to pieces. Fires from the explosion engulfed at least a dozen cars, creating clouds of smoke large enough that they drifted over the Green Zone, about half a mile away. The Tigris (Old Persian: Tigr, Syriac Aramaic: Deqlath, Arabic: دجلة, Dijla, Turkish: Dicle; biblical Hiddekil) is the eastern member of the pair of great rivers that define Mesopotamia, along with the Euphrates, which flows from the mountains of Anatolia through Iraq. ... The Green Zone is a 10 km² (4 mile²) area in central Baghdad that is the main base for coalition officials in Iraq. ...

In the past, such attacks by Sunni Arab insurgents have been met by swift reprisals, a cycle of violence that left some 34,000 Iraqis dead last year. The bombings, directed specifically at civilians, seemed intended to elicit a reprisal, much like the 23 November 2006 Sadr City bombings that killed at least 215 people. The area of the market is a stronghold of the Mahdi Army, the main Shia militia in central Iraq; a suicide bomber killed at least 63 people in the same area last month. Iraqi militants celebrating orders that the surrounding Coalition forces were given to stand-down. ... Combatants Iraqi Sunni insurgents and foreign fighters Al-Qaeda in Iraq Alleged: Jaish Ansar al-Sunna Islamic Army in Iraq Black Banner Organization Mohammads Army former Baath Loyalists Jaish al-Rashideen Iraqi Shiite militias Alleged: Mahdi Army Badr Organization Commanders Abu Musab al-Zarqawi† Abu Ayyub al-Masri... The 2006 Sadr City bombings were a series of car bombs and mortar attacks in Iraq that began on November 23 at 15:10 Baghdad time (12:10 Greenwich Mean Time) and ended at 15:55 (12:55 GMT). ... Members parade in Sadr City The Mahdi Army, also known as the Mahdi Militia, Mehdi Army or Jaish al Mahdi (Arabic جيش المهدي) , is a militia force created by the Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in June of 2003. ... A suicide bombing is a bomb attack on people or property, committed by a person who knows the explosion will cause his or her own death in addition to the attacks primary purpose (see suicide, suicide weapons). ...

The bombing was followed by prolonged gun battles. The fighting could be heard across the city, although officials did not release any casualty figures from the ensuing skirmishes. At the site of the car bombings, Iraqi Army troops spotted a man on a nearby rooftop shortly after the attack, filming the carnage. According to an Iraqi Army official, the man was killed by gunfire while attempting to escape over the rooftops. The official said the man was an Egyptian and was filming the attack to use as propaganda for the Sunni insurgents. The New Iraqi Army is being developed by the Coalition Military Assistance Training Team (CMATT) with the ultimate task of assuming responsibility for all Iraqi land-based military operations following the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. ... An Australian anti-conscription propaganda poster from World War One Propaganda is a type of message aimed at influencing the opinions or behavior of people. ...

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, whose government has proven incapable of ending the bloodshed, condemned the attack. He blamed the car bombs on followers of Saddam Hussein. At least 70 people were killed in a double bombing outside a Baghdad University during the previous week, an attack Maliki also blamed on Saddam's supporters. A U.N. envoy said Iraq was sliding "into the abyss of sectarianism" and urged Iraqi political and religious leaders to halt the violence. Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (Arabic: [1]; April 28, 1937[2] – December 30, 2006[3]), was the President of Iraq from July 16, 1979, until April 9, 2003. ... Baghdad University is a war-torn school in Baghdad, Iraq which is currently open, but on a very sporadic basis, suffering frequent power outages and terrorist attacks. ... This article is about the United Nations, for other uses of UN see UN (disambiguation) Official languages English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Arabic Secretary-General Kofi Annan (since 1997) Established October 24, 1945 Member states 191 Headquarters New York City, NY, USA Official site http://www. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Sectarian violence. ...

In addition to the market attacks, at least 15 people were killed and another 39 wounded in coordinated bomb and mortar attacks in the Shiite town of Khalis. Later that same day, a Sunni mosque in the Dura section of Baghdad was blown up; there were no reports of casualties and residents said the attack was likely retribution for the bombing of a Shiite mosque in the same neighborhood during the previous week. Police confirmed that they had found 29 unidentified bodies with gunshot wounds; altogether, more than 130 people were killed in and around the capital. US soldier loading a M224 60-mm mortar. ... Khalis is the name of a powerful psionic crystal in the fictional StarCraft universe. ... Sunni Islam (Arabic سنّة) is the largest denomination of Islam. ...

References

• 2 Car Bombs Kill Scores at Packed Market in Baghdad New York Times
• Scores killed in Iraq bloodshed BBC News
• Bombs kill at least 100 in Iraq The Guardian
• Three bomb blasts kill at least 100 in Iraq The Telegraph
• U.N. warns Iraq sliding into sectarian abyss Yahoo News