17, just days after American President George W. Bush warned that Saturday’s capture of ex-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein would not end violence.
The Voice of America (VOA) network quoted police as saying the blast happened in the middle of a residential neighborhood.
Police and civil defense workers were seen cleaning up debris after a the bombing, which reportedly shook the Iraqi capital at about 6:00 a.m. local time and was said to be powerful enough to shake the ground several kilometers away.
Most of the victims were civilians, and those who carried out the attack were terrorists, Iraqi Police Lieutenant Colonel Sabah Fahad told VOA.
WAVE OF ATTACKS
A wave of suicide attacks hit Iraqi police stations and U.S. military bases since coalition forces captured Hussein on Saturday and there were violent confrontations between United States forces and supporters of the former regime carrying pictures of the former ruler.
Several Iraqis were killed by American forces in several parts of the country during violent demonstrations since Sunday, Dec. 14, including around Tikrit, the home town of Saddam Hussein.
The U.S. Army raided Samarra, one of those towns with pro- Saddam Hussein supporters on Tuesday, December 16, and captured more than 70 suspected insurgents, including the leader of a guerrilla cell VOA reported.
CONVOY AMBUSHED
Samarra is about 100 kilometers (apr. 62 miles) north of Baghdad, and was the site of an attempted ambush on a U.S. convoy earlier Tuesday, December 16 The troops exchanged fire with their attackers, and a military statement says they killed 11, news reports said.
In his address to the nation President Bush warned Sunday, December 14 for this kind of bloodshed saying "we still face terrorists who would rather go on killing the innocent than accept the rise of liberty in the heart of the Middle East." He added that "such men are a direct threat to the American people and they will be defeated."
Meanwhile Iraqi Christians are living between hope and fear, the U.S. based Christian Broadcasting Network (CBS) reported. While they hope, that with the fall of Saddam Hussein, will gain greater religious freedom there is what a new Iraqi regime would mean in the post Saddam Hussein era amid concern about growing Muslim influence.
November was a dangerous month for Christians in Iraq as a key Christian judge was killed in Mosul, bombs were found at two Christian schools, and many Christian students and families received notes to convert to Islam, or else, BosNewsLife and CBN reported.
CHRISTIAN JUDGE KILLED
Ismail Youssef, a prominent Christian judge, was assassinated outside his home in the northern city of Mosul, on November 4. Several days later, authorities defused a cluster of bombs found at two Christian schools, one in Mosul and another in Baghdad.
A radical Islamic movement is spreading across Iraq, and it has the Christian community on edge, CBN and BosNewsLife established.
Samir Abdu-al Ahad, of the Presbyterian Church in Baghdad, told CBN that his community is "afraid of the future." Since the end of the first Gulf War, the Christian population of Iraq has already dropped from nearly two million to up to one million people.
However church leaders and Iraqi Christians have told BosNewsLife they want to stay in Iraq despite the dangers and ongoing violence to participate in spreading the Gospel amid signs of revival across the country of about 25 million people.
