Iraqi car bombers targeted university
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Chanting and weeping, Iraqis buried victims of a double car bombing against a leading Baghdad university, and police raised the death toll to 70 as outrage mounted over the deadliest attack in Iraq in nearly two months.
The violence was unrelenting today, with a suicide car bomb exploding at a checkpoint leading to a police station in the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk, killing seven people and wounding 25.
A mortar attack struck a neighborhood in Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad, killing a woman and wounding 10 other people, while police said they found the bound body of an Iraqi policeman hanging by electric wire, two days after he was kidnapped while going to his home in the same area.
Gunmen in a car also opened fire on two brothers, ages 30 and 35, on their way to work as construction workers in Mahaweel, 35 miles south of Baghdad, killing one and wounding the other, police said.
Iraqi lawmakers and students, meanwhile, called for stepped up measures for educational institutions after twin car bombs tore through Al-Mustansiriya University as students left classes Tuesday — the same day the United Nations reported 34,452 civilians were slain last year, nearly three times more than the government reported.
Baghdad streets were crowded with cars and minivans carrying wooden caskets of the victims — many headed to the holy city of Najaf where Shiites prefer to bury their dead, although some were headed to a Sunni cemetery in central Baghdad, reflecting the religiously mixed nature of the university.
Iraqi state television reported that the university would be closed through Thursday to allow for cleanup as firefighters and street sweepers worked to clear the debris.
Hussein Mohammed, a lecturer in the university's French language department, said the workers were still finding human remains and only some guards and teachers were on the campus.
"We are trying to heal our wounds and start again," he said.
Some university professors participated in the funeral procession, along with relatives and friends of the students killed, chanting "Shiites and Sunnis are brothers."
Police raised the casualty toll from the attack to 70 people killed and 133 wounded.
Higher Education Minister Abed Theyab visited some of the wounded in several hospitals around the capital and urged all sides to leave educational institutes out of conflicts, while the Iraqi parliament held a moment of silence for the students who were killed.
Sunni legislator Alaa Makki, head of the parliament's education committee, condemned the attack and blamed it on "terrorist gangs."
"We call on the government to make the protection of educational institutes one of the priorities of the new security plan," Makki said.
A total of 142 Iraqis were killed or found dead Tuesday, in what appeared to be a renewed campaign of Sunni insurgent violence.
