Saturday, June 27, 2009 BAGHDAD: Iraq's main motorcycle market was hit by a bombing that killed 13 people and wounded dozens on Friday, just four days before US soldiers pull out from cities, towns and villages nationwide. The blast, the latest in a string of attacks in the run-up to Tuesday's withdrawal of American troops, prompted US President Barack Obama to say that conflict-hit Iraq must make greater efforts to counter sectarian tension. Defence and interior ministry officials confirmed the toll of Friday's bomb and said it went off in the capital's Nahdha district at around 9 am (0600 GMT), as people gathered at the market on the Muslim day of rest. "People burned and bodies were thrown everywhere," said Omar Hashem, 34, covered in blood, who was accompanying a friend planning to sell a motorcycle when the explosion struck. "At first we ran away but we returned to help the victims. Blood and body parts covered dozens of motorcycles that were completely destroyed." Bike trader Maytham Abdelamir, 23, crying, said: "There was a huge shockwave. I saw so many people burned; others were thrown in the air. My friend was killed."Officials from two Baghdad hospitals told media that 54 people were wounded.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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