On the main road through this dusty and downtrodden community lies a compound designed to host a municipal center with local government offices, a building for council meetings, a firehouse and a library with a playground surrounded by cartoon-adorned walls. But the front wall of the meeting facility is gone, with a pickup truck’s chassis and axles jutting haphazardly out of a gaping hole littered with brick. The municipal offices are covered in broken glass and pieces of the ceiling. The walls are streaked with bloody handprints that trail toward the front gate, where the dirt is still charred in large streaks. The firehouse and library have been empty for weeks. This is the site, about 10 miles west of Baghdad, where seven Iraqi civilians and an American soldier were killed in a massive suicide bomb blast last month. U.S. Army officers and local Iraqi officials said it was a symbol of an intensifying campaign by insurgents to attack public works projects and Iraqis who work with or seek help from the U.S.-led occupation. Full Story
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