Car Bombs
By Dahr Jamail
19 January, 2005
Dahrjamailiraq.com
The thundering blast rocks me awake at
7:05am. The first thing my eyes see are the curtains of my room flowing
in, as if a strong wind is blowing into my room.
Holy shit,
they hit the embassy, I think to myself, the blast was so
close.
I leave my windows
cracked and curtains drawn for just this reason-while my door was blasted
open, splintering the frame where it was locked shut, none of my windows
shattered. Aside from small chunks from the ceiling of my room strewn
about the floor, I am alright.
I look out my window
and see that despite shattered glass strewn outside many of the nearby
buildings, the Australian embassy is intact.
I quickly throw
on some clothes, grab my camera and run into the hall-where it is filled
with so much dust its difficult to see.
In the hall, as
well as all the others I see as I run upstairs, pieces of ceiling and
broken glass are everywhere.
The suicide car
bomb detonated near the base of a large building across the street which
is home to many Australian soldiers. From there they guard the checkpoint
to their nearby embassy from the multi-story building with snipers.
Two smoldering bits of a vehicle sit nearby the building, and two bodies
lay in pools of blood across the street.
A small building
near the Australian outpost received heavy damage right in front of
the detonated car. Despite being heavily fortified with concrete barriers,
razor wire, sand bags, and sand barriers, the outpost has chunks blown
out of it and the netting and plywood which covers many of the windows
is hanging haphazardly out the openings.
I was on the roof
just minutes after the blast and the Iraqi Police (IP) had already arrived
en masse. A woman screaming in hysterics is pushed inside one of their
trucks and taken away
she was trying to reach one of the bodies
as several policeman ushered her off.
Other IPs
inspect the bodies while black smoke plumes languidly drift down the
street in the early morning stillness.
Police run about,
yelling orders and barking at journalists, but there is nothing much
else for them to do. They load the two bodies into a vehicle and drive
them to a morgue.
It is a seemingly
senseless attack-as this building occupied by the Australian military
is so heavily fortified that no car bomb could possibly reach it. This
one caused merely superficial damage, and killed only civilians while
wounding some Australian soldiers.
This was a smaller
car bomb, as it didnt leave a crater like so many of the others.
Nevertheless, glass is shattered in buildings hundreds of meters away
from the blast, pieces of wall are crumbled
it is like being in
a large earthquake, but the tremors consolidated into one large shake.
About 20 minutes
later several truckloads of Iraqi soldiers show up, many of them wearing
their usual black facemasks.
15 minutes after
this the US military shows up with 10 Humvees, a Bradley and a large
tank. They seal the street, and begin to string their razor wire across
the road.
Two Apache helicopters
arrive and commence rumbling in circles around the area, buzzing overhead.
I watch an old woman
who lives in a home just across from the bombing. She is walking around
in her yard aimlessly, sometimes stopping to slowly pick up rubble from
her wall that was damaged in the blast, then just looking around her
home.
Half an hour after
this another large car bomb detonates in eastern Baghdad at an Iraqi
police headquarters, killing 18 people as the explosion echoes across
the capital city.
I return to my room
to commence writing
Abu Talat calls and cant make it over
for our work because so many roads nearby my hotel are closed.
As I write three
more huge explosions rumble across the center of Baghdad. In a span
of just 90 minutes five car bombs detonated killing at least 26 people.
One of the car bombs
detonated outside a bank where IPs were collecting their salaries,
killing at least 10 of them.
Another car bomb
detonated at the airport, killing two guards.
A military installation
was also attacked, killing two American soldiers and two civilians.
Iraqis around my
hotel compound are sweeping up glass as I make some calls to let folks
know Im alive.
The US-backed Iraqi
government has announced draconian measures which state that from January
29th-31st the borders of Iraq will be closed, mobile and satellite phone
services will be cut, the borders of Iraqs 18 governorates will
be closed and no civilian traffic will be allowed near the polling stations.
Polling stations
will each have several rings of security in an attempt to stave off
the violence. Be that as it may, the Ministry of Health is making special
preparations to deal with the massive bloodshed expected for the elections.
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