"The Americans know everything, they can do everything, they can repair the space shuttle without touching it, why do they let these things happen here in Iraq?" said Abu Muhammad, 55, one of the custodians of the bombed mosque.
"We think the Americans want these things to happen in Iraq, to keep things like this," he said, gesturing to the office of the mosque's imam in which the walls and ceiling had collapsed, raining hundreds of bricks into the room, crushing the imam's desk and chairs. The imam survived because he had left the building before the bomb detonated.
The above is from Alissa J. Rubin's "Truck Bomb Hits Baghdad Mosque, and 61 Are Killed" (New York Times) and she's covering the attack on the Baghdad mosque yesterday. In addition to giving space for Iraqis to speak for themselves, Rubin also notes that the truck was filled with cooking gas. As for the numbers, most have stuck with 78 although one AP report says 87 were killed and that report also notes that two mosques have been blown up today, one in Haswa and one outside Hillah. And Reuters is now reporting that the death toll has climbed to 87 so far from Tuesday's Baghdad bombing and noting it's the highest death toll from one incident since April 18th. CNN also reports the death toll has now climbed to 87 and notes that
214 are injured.
Late yesterday the US military announced the deaths of three more US soldiers. They announced: "A Task Force Marne Soldier was killed and three were wounded when their patrol was struck by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad Monday." And they announced: " One Task Force Lightning Soldier died as a result of injuries sustained from an explosion near his vehicle while conducting operations in Diyala Province June 19." And they announced: "A Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldier was killed when a patrol was attacked with small arms fire during combat operations in an eastern section of the Iraqi capital June 18." These three deaths bring the ICCC count to 3531 US troops have died in the illegal war since it began with 54 of those deaths being in the month of June.
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alissa j. rubin
