8A
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAS
>> IRAO
U.S. disputes TV report of deadly blast
BY BRIAN MURPHY ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHADAD. Iraq — Police and Iraqi state television said a car bomb exploded Tuesday near a park popular with young soccer players, killing at least 18 boys in Ramadi, a city west of Baghdad.
However, the U.S. military said 30 civilians and one Iraqi soldier were injured in a "controlled detonation" of explosives southeast of Ramadi but there were no deaths. The military routinely blows up captured weapons and ammunition.
It was unclear whether there were two blasts or confusion over the casualties from a single explosion.
Both local police and state television said the bomb rigged car blew apart Tuesday afternoon while the boys, aged 10-15, were playing in Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold about 70 miles west of Baghdad.
The Interior Ministry did not immediately return calls for details.
In Baghdad on Tuesday, at least 10 people were killed in bombings amid a security operation launched this month targeting militant factions and sectarian death squads that
have ruled the capital's streets.
As part of the sweeps, U.S. and Iraqi forces staged raids in Baghdad's main Shite militant stronghold, making politically sensitive forays into areas loyal to radical cleric Mugtada al Sadr.
Al-Sadri withdrew his Mahdi Army militia from checkpoints and bases under intense government pressure to let the neighborly neighbor security sweeps move ahead. But Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki and others have opposed extensive U.S.-led patrols through Sadr City, fearing a violent backlash could derail the security effort.
The pre-dawn raids appeared to highlight a strategy of pinpoint strikes in Sadr City rather than the flood of soldiers sent into some Sunni districts.
At least 16 people were arrested after U.S.-iraqi commandos stormed six homes, police said.
The U.S. military statement said the raids targeted "the leadership of several rogue" Mahdi Army cells that "direct and perpetrate sectarian murder" — an apparent reference to Shite gangs accused of carrying out execution-style slayings and torture
on Sunni rivals.
"My sons and wife were very terrified," complained Muhand Milibas, 30, who said his brother and six cousins were taken in the sweeps. "Does the security plan mean arresting innocent people and scaring civilians at night?"
At a news conference, the Pentagon's No. 2 commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, declined to comment on whether there were special tactics for Sadr City.
"We will go after anyone who we feel is working against the government of Iraq," he said.
U. S. military spokesman Mai Gen, William Caldwell told Al-Arabiya television that forces "will increase our operations in the coming days" but noted that the security crackdown in the capital should continue until at least October.
Added Otherno: "We will keep at this until the people feel safe in their neighborhoods"
A roadside bomb southwest of the capital killed three U.S. soldiers assigned to a unit based in Baghdad, the military said. A fourth soldier was killed near Diwaniyah, a mostly Shiite town south of Baghdad.
An Iraq boy lies in a bed in a hospital tuesday in Baghdad, Iraq, after he was injured in a car bomb attack. Bombings continued to hit across central Baghdad tuesday, with three bomb explosions killing at least 10 people.
Adilal-Khazali/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Assassination attempt on Cheney fails
>> TALIBAN
BY ALISA TANG ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGRAM, Afghanistan—In what the Taliban claimed was an assassination attempt, a suicide bomber attacked the main gate of a U.S. military base Tuesday within earshot of Vice President Dick Cheney. The explosion killed 23 people, including two Americans, and delivered a propaganda blow that undercut the U.S. military and the weak Afghan government it supports.
The bomber struck about 10 a.m. and U.S. military officials declared a "red alert" at the sprawling Bagram Air Base while Cheney was rushed to a bomb shelter. Cheney, who had been stranded at the base overnight by a snowstorm, met with President Hamid Karzai in the capital before heading back to the United States via the Gulf state of Oman.
"I heard a loud boom." Cheney told reporters aboard Air Force Two en route to Oman "The Secret Service came in and told me there
had been an attack on the main gate"
Many of the victims were said to be Afghan truck drivers waiting to get inside the base. A dozen men — many of them sobbing heavily
— left the base holding a stretcher bearing their loved ones wrapped in black body bags. Tears streamed down the face of one man sitting in the passenger seat of an SUV that carried another victim away.
Although the bomber did not get closer than roubly a mile to the vice
president, the attack highlighted an increasingly precarious security situation posed by the resurgent Taliban. Five years after U.S.-led forces toppled their regime, Taliban led militants have stepped up attacks. There were 139 suicide bombings last year, a fivefold increase since 2005, and a fresh wave of violence is expected this spring.
Striking at Bagram with a suicide bomber, I suppose, is one way to do that. But it shouldn't affect our behavior at all"
Cheney was the highest-ranking U.S. official to stay overnight in either the Afghanistan or Iraq war zones.
President Bush was not awakened to be told about the attack, but received an update early Tuesday morning. White House press secretary Tony Snow said Bush's first reaction was to ask if Cheney was OK.
A message posted on a Web site used by militants said "a muhadil (holy warrior) ... carried out a suicide attack in front of the second gate of the Bagram Air Base. ... The target was Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney."
reach Cheney."
But it appeared unlikely the bomber would have been able to reach Cheney, who was in a "very, sate and secure place" roughly a mile from the blast site, said U.S. spokesman Lt. Col. David Accetta.
The bomber, Acceita said, never tried to get by any U.S.-manned security checkpoints and instead walked into a group of Alghans outside the base and detonated himself.
A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said Cheney was the target of the attack carried out by an Afghan named Mullah Abdul Rahim.
"To characterize this as a direct attempt on the life of the vice president is absurd." Accetta said.
"We knew that Dick Cheney would be staying inside the base." Ahmadi told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location. "The attacker was trying to
The guerrillas, according to NATO officials, have the flexibility to organize an attack quickly and may have been able to plan a bombing at the base while Cheney was there after hearing news reports on Monday that he was delayed by bad weather. The Taliban have attacked in the area north of the capital in the past even though people living in the Bagram area have not been supportive of the guerrillas. Col. Tom Collins, the top spokesman for the NATO force, said the Taliban had a cell in Kabul that could have traveled the 30 miles north to Bagam.
Cheney's trip to Afghanistan — on the heels of a four-hour visit Monday to Pakistan — had not been announced in advance. Snow said he did not know whether publicity about Cheney's overnight stay at the base helped invite the attack — after the planned meeting Monday with Karzai was postponed.
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Even through reaching the front gate of the U.S. base could have been achieved with relative ease, the idea of getting through U.S. security to attack Cheney was "far fetched," in the words of U.S. spokesman Ma(J), William Mitchell.
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Asked if the Taliban were trying to send a message with the attack, Cheney said: "I think they clearly try to find ways to question the authority of the central government.
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