Emergency Declared in Iraq’s Ramadi After Bombings

July 21, 2009

RAMADI, Iraq — Iraq’s western city of Ramadi has declared a state of emergency and imposed a vehicle ban after two bomb attacks on Tuesday, police said, a day after an explosion in the usually quiet city killed two policemen.

A suicide bomber in a moving car and a bomb in a parked car detonated near-simultaneously near a group of restaurants in Ramadi, capital of western Anbar province, killing three people and wounding 13 others, police said. Another police source said one person was killed, but 18 were wounded.

“A state of emergency has been declared in Ramadi because of intelligence there is a third car filled with explosives in the city,” a police officer who declined to be named said. During a state of emergency more police are deployed, and they conduct greater security checks. A vehicle ban has also been in imposed in Falluja, Anbar’s second city.

The fronts of the restaurants were severely damaged in the Ramadi blasts, and blood stained the ground nearby, a Reuters witness said. The city’s streets emptied and shops had drawn their shutters in fear of another attack, the witness said. …

On Monday, a bomb in a parked car in Ramadi killed two policemen and wounded another when it exploded near a police checkpoint. Last week, a bomb planted in the house of a police captain killed two children in Falluja. …

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Baghdad Bombs Kill 16

July 21, 2009

BAGHDAD — Bombs exploded across Baghdad on Tuesday, killing 16 people and wounding dozens, two of the blasts striking the crowded Shi’ite slum of Sadr City, security officials said.

The first Sadr City bomb, apparently targeting day laborers, killed four people and left 39 wounded, said Baghdad security spokesman Qassim al-Moussawi.

Another bomb in the same area of northeastern Baghdad killed three civilians and wounded 15. The slum was once a haven for gunmen loyal to anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, but the militia has now been largely disbanded and splintered.

In Husseiniya, just north of Baghdad, a series of blasts in a popular market killed five people and wounded 28, police said. …

A roadside bomb killed two civilians and wounded 13 others all from the same extended family as they made their way to a funeral in central Baghdad on Tuesday. And a car bomb exploded near a vegetable market, killing two civilians and wounding six others in south Baghdad’s Doura district, police said. …

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago Today — July 22, 2008

On the Campaign Trail: Day Eight

One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on the eighth day of my 2008 campaign against incumbent U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann for the Republican nomination in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, I reported being inundated with questionnaires from special interest groups. I also addressed the seemingly dim prospects for the Republican Party in the 2008 election and commented that the GOP generally faced a bleak outlook for the foreseeable future (see also “Future of the Republican Party”).