WORLD / Middle East |
Chemical blasts sicken hundreds in Iraq(AP)Updated: 2007-03-18 10:53
Three suicide bombers driving trucks rigged with tanks of toxic chlorine gas struck targets in heavily Sunni Anbar province including the office of a Sunni tribal leader opposed to al-Qaida. The attacks killed at least two people and sickened 350 Iraqi civilians and six U.S. troops, the U.S. military said Saturday.
The violence started about 4:11 p.m. Friday when a driver detonated explosives in a pickup truck carrying chlorine at a checkpoint northeast of the provincial capital of Ramadi, wounding one U.S. service member and one Iraqi civilian, the military said in a statement.
Ahmed Kuhdier, a 32-year-old taxi driver, said the blast sent up a plume of white smoke that turned black and blue. "Minutes later, we started to smell nasty smells. I saw people coming from the explosion site and they were coughing and having trouble breathing," he said. Another suicide bomber detonated a dump truck containing a 200-gallon chlorine tank rigged with explosives at 7:13 p.m. three miles south of Fallujah in the Albu Issa tribal region, the military said. U.S. forces found about 250 local civilians, including seven children, suffering from symptoms related to chlorine exposure, according to the statement. Police said the bomb was targeting the reception center of a tribal sheik who has denounced al-Qaida. Four other bombings have released chlorine gas since Jan. 28, when a suicide
bomber driving a dump truck filled with explosives and a chlorine tank struck a
quick-reaction force and Iraqi police in Ramadi, killing 16 people. The U.S.
military has warned that insurgents are adopting new tactics in a campaign to
spread panic.
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