quote:An explosion has hit a cafeteria at the Iraqi parliament, killing at least eight people, at least two of them MPs, the US military has said.
Police said they believed a suicide bomber was involved. Twenty-three people were injured in the attack.
The cafe, in Baghdad's highly fortified Green Zone, is for MPs and their staff, some of whom were having lunch there.
Earlier, a bomb on a bridge in Baghdad killed at least eight people and sent several cars into the River Tigris.
I'm not sure, but I think MP is used in this article to stand for Member of Parliament, and not Military Police. I haven't seen that abbreviation before though, so if someone could confirm that, I'd appreciate it.
I have to admit, I find this quite a bit more shocking than I thought I would have. It seems like a major MAJOR blow to the government. So my question to you is, is this as bad as it seems, and how quickly can we expect parliament to recover?
I wonder if this will be the last nail in the coffin for public opinion of this war. I'm not sure yet, but it may be for mine.
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posted
I think it should probably be pretty shocking. If a suicide bomber blew himself up in Congress here in the U.S., I'm certain it would be a pretty big deal to our government.
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I dunno. The Administration ordered the FBI to run around the world chasing ghosts when Dubya&Gang already knew that the genetic markers proved that that particular strain of anthrax could have come only from FortDietrich.
quote:I'm not sure, but I think MP is used in this article to stand for Member of Parliament, and not Military Police. I haven't seen that abbreviation before though, so if someone could confirm that, I'd appreciate it.
IIRC, yes, MP is generally used to refer to an individual member of parliament in nations that use that system.
quote:The al-Sarafiya bridge is believed to be at least 75 years old, built by the British in the early part of the 20th century.
"It is one of Baghdad's monuments. This is really damaging for Iraq. We are losing a lot of our history every day," said Ahmed Abdul-Karim, who lives nearby.
Before the bridge was destroyed, nine spans over the Tigris linked western and eastern Baghdad.
The river now serves as a de facto dividing line between the mostly Shiite east and the largely Sunni west of the city, a reality of more than a year of sectarian fighting that has forced Sunnis to flee neighborhoods where they were a minority and likewise for Shiites.
Hm.
* * *
It has to be a serious blow -- the idea was that they would be safe to legislate from within the GZ, even if they weren't elsewhere.
I wonder what the protocol is for replacing parliamentarians over there.
posted
This reminds me of a couple weeks ago when the Chinese Premier (I think? or was it their foreign minister or something similar?) visited with al-Maliki and a bomb went off outside the building. The Chinese diplomat ducked and looked scared witless.
al-Maliki didn't even pause in his speech.
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Blayne Bradley
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however has the best aim with a Kalishnikov.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: This reminds me of a couple weeks ago when the Chinese Premier (I think? or was it their foreign minister or something similar?) visited with al-Maliki and a bomb went off outside the building. The Chinese diplomat ducked and looked scared witless.
al-Maliki didn't even pause in his speech.
That was the secretary general of the UN, and he's Korean, I think.
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