Gunmen blow up bridge north of Tikrit

[sabra]

Source: Voice of Iraq

Tikrit, Aug 9, (VOI) - Unknown gunmen blew up a bridge linking Salah al-Din and Kirkuk provinces on Thursday morning, a police source said.

"Unknown gunmen planted and blew up large amounts of explosives under the Pitrokimiwiat concrete bridge near Makhoul mount, 50 km north of Tikrit, bringing down a large part of the bridge," the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).

The source added, "the 35 km-long bridge linked Salah al-Din province with Kirkuk."
It was built over the Lower Zab River, a tributary of the Tigris.
Tikrit, capital city of Salah al-Din, is 175 km north of Baghdad.

Read more: http://66.111.34.180/look/english/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrArticle=52317&NrIssue=2&NrSection=1

[beberocks]

1. No water, electricity, and now the bridges...not good.

Prepare for the mass exodus of Baghdad and the collapse of the
Iraqi government, IMO. I'm betting on cleric Al Sadr to be the
new head of what's left of Iraq.

[izzie]

2. With these people and the US Iraq should be back to the stone

age by the time Bush leaves the WH. If this was his aim he has finally done some thing very well.

[Teaser]

3. Anyone want to do some digging?

See if we can google map this bridge. I'd like to see the strategic significance.

[xchrom]

4. it doesn't have to be an important bridge --

just that they're blowing up the infrastructure now.

that ''glowing'' september report -- is starting to take on a supernatural glow.

[Teaser]

5. But there has been a pattern to blowing up bridges

Mostly its been done to isolate Baghdad. I'm just wondering if this is part of that plan.

[peace13]

6. Can't we pull up our satellite pictures and follow these masked ?

men? Me thinks we know who did it.

[xchrom]

7. indeed.

but it's also an ''in your face'' statement to the u.s. forces if they can blow up any bridge.

[Amonester]

16. Yeah, Betrayus is going to report all sorts of positive numbers...

...that in reality, will be all made up and false, and he's going to ask for six more months to give it a "Real" chance to work.

Mark my word. (No credit here: these fearmongerers R easy to predict. They think we're all idiots like them.)

[mikeytherat]

8. Gunmen? The sound like bombers to me.

No guns are mentioned in the article, but lots of explosives are. Interesting headline.

mikey_the_rat

[underpants]

11. Well they aren't sure

so they just went ahead and assumed that these guys had some of the 190,000 guns that *poof* went missing

[slackmaster]

9. Wouldn't that make them bombmen?

:shrug:

"Unknown gunmen planted and blew up large amounts of explosives..."

If they were unknown, how do we know they had guns?

[uppityperson]

10. Led by #2 also, probably.

[thunder rising]

15. or "Unknown terrorists linked to Al Qaida ...."

[Tesha]

12. Couldn't they just have waited for us to "maintain the bridge" into destruction?

They could have kept their powder dry (or their C4 plastic).

Tesha

[badgervan]

13. It's Obvious

they're attempting to cut U.S. forces off from supply and retreat lines.

[thunder rising]

14. A hint of strategic importance

Kirkuk is the center of the northern Iraqi petroleum industry. This might be to slow down a response when the Kurds take over the north.