Water plant fire adds to misery of Baghdad residents
BAGHDAD -- A mortar attack sparked a fire yesterday that forced authorities to shut down a water plant, leaving millions of weary Baghdad residents with dry taps in 100-degree heat, Iraqi officials said.
Just a day earlier, the mayor of the capital threatened to quit because of mounting infrastructure problems, including a lack of clean drinking water.
The blaze at a power station north of Baghdad cut off electricity to a water plant serving northern and western parts of the capital, officials said. The fire halted all distribution from the waterworks, and project director Jassim Mohammed said repairs could take three days.
The US military press office initially quoted Iraqi engineers as saying the fire was triggered by a defective transformer. However, an Iraqi municipal official said at least two mortar rounds struck the power station. Mohammed also attributed the fire to an attack.
A US spokesman for Task Force Baghdad, Master Sergeant Greg Kaufman, said later that unexploded ordnance was found in the area but ''we're still not sure" what triggered the fire.
The water shortage added to the misery of Baghdad's estimated 6.5 million people, who face frequent electricity outages, erratic fuel supplies, congested traffic, diminished public services, and the ever-present threat of kidnappings and car bombings.
On Thursday, the city's mayor, Alaa Mahmoud al-Timimi, threatened to quit unless the government provides more money for repairs.
''There is an anxiousness here to deal with the infrastructure problems and that, for sure, has a political cost to the current government if they can't fix the problem," a US official told reporters. ''And there are no quick fixes."
In ongoing bloodshed yesterday, an aide to Iraq's most influential Shi'ite cleric was sprayed with machine-gun fire and killed in a drive-by shooting, while a suicide car bomb exploded near Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's party offices, killing one person.
Kamal Ezz al-Deen al-Ghuraifi, an aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, was shot as he left al-Doreen mosque in Baghdad after leading prayers, according to his son, Hamid Kamal. Police confirmed the attack.
''Gunmen in a speeding car sprayed him with machine guns," said police Lieutenant Thair Mahmoud. Two bodyguards also were killed and four wounded, he said.
Ghuraifi, in his 60s, had been an aide to the grand ayatollah for a decade and was the third Sistani aide killed recently, said Amer al-Hussaini, a friend of Ghuraifi.
A roadside bomb intended for a US Marine convoy in Ramadi caused no American casualties but killed two civilians, US officials said. Another roadside bomb missed a US military convoy in Baghdad but killed a civilian, police reported.
In a separate development, Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations accused US Marines of killing his unarmed young cousin in what appeared to be ''cold blood" and demanded an investigation and punishment for the perpetrators.
In an e-mail to friends, Ambassador Samir Sumaidaie said the killing took place in his ancestral village in western Anbar province, where US-led forces have been conducting a counterinsurgency sweep aimed at disrupting the flow of foreign militants into Iraq.
His cousin Mohammed Al-Sumaidaie, 21, a university student, was killed June 25 when he took Marines doing house-to-house searches to a bedroom to show them where a rifle which had no live ammunition was kept, the ambassador said. When the Marines left, he was found in the bedroom with a bullet in his neck.
Richard Grenell, spokesman for the US mission to the UN, said acting US ambassador Anne Patterson asked senior State Department and Pentagon officials to look into the matter.
