CNN REPORTS IRAQ WILL ROUND UP HOMELESS, MENTALLY ILL IN ATTEMPT TO STOP SUICIDE BOMBINGS

Suicide bombings in Iraq are on the rise and the Iraqi government is going to take a draconian measure and round up all the homeless and mentally ill and place them in government institutions.

What is interesting is how the mainstream media in the United States has been avoiding coverage of the war in Iraq except for "puff pieces" on how well "the surge" has been doing.

The mainstream press in the U.S. are shunning coverage of the Iraq war, but the foreign press, especially the press in the Middle East, have been reporting daily on the increase of suicide bombers, many of them women and young girls who suffer from mental problems.

This CNN story, along with a list of suicide bombings in recent days, is being carried on CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/, a blog by Bill Corcoran which covers the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan no longer covered by the mainstream press in the United States.

Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE

Iraq to round up homeless, mentally ill, to prevent bombings

From Mohammed TawfeeqCNN

http://tinyurl.com/2ycmnv

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi authorities plan to round up homeless and mentally ill residents on streets across the war-torn nation to prevent them from becoming used as suicide bombers, an Interior Ministry official said.

The move follows a pair of high-profile February 1 bombings that left almost 100 people dead.

The bombers, who hit a Baghdad pet market, were mentally handicapped women and the explosives strapped to their bodies were detonated by remote control, said U.S. and Iraqi authorities.

Police will hand beggars, vagrants and the mentally handicapped over to governmental institutions that can provide them with shelter and care, a high-ranking official in the interior minister's office said.

The campaign is scheduled to be launched Wednesday and is expected to last for at least a week, the official said.

"Militant groups, like al Qaeda in Iraq, have started exploiting these people in a very bad manner to kill innocents because they do not raise suspicions," Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf told The Associated Press.

"These groups are either luring those who are desperate for money to help them in their attacks or making use of their poor mental condition to use them as suicide bombers."

The U.S. military reported last week that al Qaeda in Iraq recruited female patients from Baghdad's two psychiatric hospitals, with the help of hospital staff, for suicide missions. It is unclear whether the women understood what they were doing. Watch how using women may represent a new tactic »

American troops arrested the acting administrator of one of the hospitals after the February 1 attack, announcing an unspecified link between the man and the bombers.

And Sunday, three civilians died and 10 people, including a police officer, were wounded when a female beggar blew herself up inside an electronics store in central Baghdad, according to another Interior Ministry official.

The official said Iraqi police suspect the woman was wearing an explosive vest and tried to warn the people around her, but she ran into the store and detonated it.

Meanwhile, Iraqi authorities are investigating another deadly blast Tuesday.
A truck loaded with rockets exploded as Iraqi police tried to defuse them, killing at least 15 officers and wounding 27, an Interior Ministry official said.

Police found the truck parked in the eastern Baghdad neighborhood of al-Obeidi, a Shiite Muslim district, after a rocket attack on a nearby U.S. military post, the official said.

A number of bomb disposal experts were among the dead and wounded, the official said.
Rocket and mortar attacks remain common in Baghdad despite a marked reduction in the level of sectarian killings over the past year.

Rocket attacks around Camp Victory -- a major U.S. base at Baghdad's airport -- left five Iraqis dead and 16 people wounded, including two U.S. soldiers and at least six children.

U.S. and Iraqi troops detained six people for questioning and recovered an unexploded rocket after the attack.