15 Detained in Iraq Suicide Attacks

[Khephra]

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraqi police and U.S. troops detained 15 people, including several possible Iranians, in the devastating suicide attacks against Shiite pilgrims the day before, an official said Wednesday.

Authorities, meanwhile tried to sort out the number of dead and how militants staged Iraq's bloodiest attacks since the war ended.

Suicide bombers set off simultaneous attacks on Shiite Muslim shrines crowded with pilgrims Tuesday in Baghdad and Karbala, killing scores of people.

U.S. officials and Iraqi leaders named an al-Qaida-linked militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, as a "prime suspect" for the attacks, saying he seeks to spark a Sunni-Shiite civil war to wreck U.S. plans to hand over power to the Iraqis on June 30.

But some Shiites lashed out at U.S. forces.

more.............

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-iraq-detentions,0,2341474.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines

[leftchick]

1. I notice the US is still using fuzzy math to count the dead....

<The American revised the number killed from 143 to 117, the coalition official said Wednesday. But Iraq's Health Ministry said 185 people were killed, and some unofficial Iraqi death totals were as high as 230. Estimates of the wounded ranged from 300 to more than 400.>

... sickening.

[Rebel_with_a_cause]

2. They always say they detain people after a blast

but the blasts continue, nonetheless.

[Journeyman]

3. Why would "possible Iranians" who are. . .

probably Shiite seek to spark a Sunni-Shiite civil war by attacking fellow Shiites? Wouldn't logic (I know. . . I'm using logic in relation to ShrubCo -- about as senseless as applying logic to a Schwarznegger movie), but wouldn't logic, if nothing else, dictate that Shiites would foment trouble by attacking their opposite number, the Sunnis?

Don't have any ideas myself. Just wondering.