Tal Afar Bomb Deadliest ~ 150+ Killed

BAGHDAD—The Iraqi government raised the death toll on Saturday from a truck bomb this week in the town of Tal Afar to 152, making it the deadliest single bombing of the four-year-old conflict.
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Interior Ministry spokesman Brigadier Abdul Kareem Khalaf told a news conference that 347 people were wounded in Tuesday's attack on a Shi'ite area. There was another, small truck bomb in the mixed northwestern town on the same day. Khalaf said 100 homes had been destroyed in the main blast, which officials have blamed on al Qaeda. The explosion left a 23-metre (75-ft)-wide crater. It took us a while to recover all the bodies from underneath the rubble of the homes ... what did they achieve by using two tonnes of explosive to kill and wound 500 in a residential area?" Khalaf asked at a news conference.
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Tal Afar mayor Najim Abdullah Jibouri said he believed the ministry number was exaggerated, putting the death toll at around 100. Durad Kashmula, the governor of Nineveh province, which includes Tal Afar, as well as the provincial police chief said they agreed with the Interior Ministry. The past week has been the bloodiest in Iraq since the government launched a security crackdown in Baghdad in February aimed at halting the country's slide toward civil war. (Source: Reuters on The Epoch Times)
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+ Nearly 500 Killed in Iraq This Past Week
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Other News:
+ Artillery rocks Mogadishu on third day of fighting: MOGADISHU, March 31 (Reuters) - Shelling rocked Mogadishu for a third day on Saturday, overwhelming hospitals with casualties as Ethiopian and Somali troops backed by helicopter gunships attacked Islamist rebels and clan militia. Scores of civilians have been killed in what the International Committee of the Red Cross says is the capital's worst fighting for more than 15 years. Ethiopia said its military had killed more than 200 "armed remnants" of a hardline Islamist movement ousted from Mogadishu in a war over the New Year.

+ Civilian deaths mount in Mogadishu
+ Iranian Leader: U.K. Sailors Trespassed
+ US: No Iran prisoner swap
+ Robert Mugabe's misrule is in danger of spreading
+ Pakistan successfully tested an indigenous short-range, nuclear-capable missile on Saturday
+ Greek Shipping: The Greeks were also helped by the U.S. Government, which, aiming to revive Greece's merchant marine after World War II, sold them 100 Liberty ships on easy credit terms (don't ask me what this has to do with anything, it's my blog)