Coalition truck bomb kills 150, injures 250 in Baghdad

[TonyGosling]

As Iraq unites in the run-up to a vote of no confidence in the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki coalition forces, not the Iraqi people, are doing murderous work in an attempt to divide and rule.

The US military in Iraq, beefed up by new deployments this year, is conducting an intensified security crackdown in the capital aimed at bringing calm to Baghdad.... mmmmmm

Up to 150 feared dead in Iraq blast
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/776FADB7-7750-4953-9436-98E75B0 4A4E3.htm
Up to 150 people are feared to have been killed by a lorry bomb in a crowded market in the northern Iraqi village of Amirli.

Many homes in the small community were destroyed when a suicide bomber detonated a powerful bomb on a lorry loaded with bricks, security and administration officials said on Saturday.

Emergency workers in northern Iraq told Al Jazeera the death toll could reach as high as 150.

Lieutenant colonel Saman Hamid, security forces commander in nearby Tuz Khurmatu, told the AFP news agency, "105 Iraqis were killed and five are missing ... there are more than 250 wounded."

The casualty toll was confirmed by Dr Wissam Abdullah, the director of a local hospital.

Homes destroyed

Hamad Rasheed, a local civilian administrator, said, "The security reports that I have received from the scene confirmed that 115 were killed and five are missing and around five more collected as loose flesh.

"The corpses were under the debris of the collapsed buildings. Some were burnt and others were torn apart. This is a big disaster for the town, all of the casualties were civilians"

Rasheed said: "Some 40 homes, 20 shops and 10 vehicles were destroyed.

"The corpses were under the debris of the collapsed buildings. Some were burnt and others were torn apart.

"This is a big disaster for the town, all of the casualties were civilians," he added.

Abdullah said the dead and wounded had been taken to an emergency room at his hospital in Tuz Khurmatu, to two hospitals in Kirkuk, the provincial capital, and two more as far away as the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah.........