Iraq Watch: May 26, 2006

Bombs Hit Baghdad Markets

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Three bombs exploded at bustling Baghdad marketplaces Friday leaving over a dozen Iraqis dead and nearly 70 wounded.

The first bomb, hidden underneath a parked car, exploded Friday morning in the largely Shiite neighborhood of Nahda. The blast killed at least nine and injured 30 more.

Separately, a bomb detonated in the capital's al-Bayaa district wounding upwards of 20 civilians.

Late Friday, in the third market blast, four Iraqis were killed and some 20 wounded when a car bomb went off in southeastern Baghdad.

Meanwhile, Sunni imam Wafiq al-Hamdani was assassinated in a drive-by shooting in the southern city of Basra. Al-Hamdani's death prompted Sunni clerics in the area to close their mosques in protest. Yaum al-Juma, or Friday, is the traditional Muslim day of prayer.

In more apparent sectarian bloodshed, four bodies were found in the southern city of Kut on Friday while the U.S. military discovered 14 corpses late Thursday near Tikrit, north of Baghdad.

Police also discovered the beheaded bodies of four people who were abducted from a wedding party Thursday night in the religiously-mixed town of Muqdadiyah, northeast of the capital.

In the restive town of Baqouba, the capital of Diyala province, militants kidnapped at least eight people late Thursday. Four of the abducted individuals were security guards for a local state-run TV station while the others were government employees according to the Washington Post.

In a foreboding sign of the growing religious extremism in parts of post-Saddam Iraq, the nations Interior Ministry announced Friday that insurgents executed the coach of Iraq's national tennis team along with two of the teams' players earlier this week in Baghdad.

The BBC reports that religious zealots allegedly killed the three for "wearing shorts." AFP adds that the trio had just dropped off laundry at a local cleaners' when gunmen stopped their car, pulled them out, and executed them on the spot.

The Washington Times recently reported that militants linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq have begun implementing a strict version of Sharia, or Islamic law, in some Sunni-dominated parts of the capital city.