어제 바그다드에서 거의 소형 핵폭탄 규모의 자살테러가 발생했다. 사람들이 많이 모이는 시장에서 폭탄트럭이 폭발했는데 TNT 환산 900t 규모(뉴욕타임스)의 폭발력으로 적어도 130명이 죽고 300명 이상이 다쳤다. 작년 10월 북한이 핵실험하였을 때의 폭발력은 TNT 환산 약400t이었으니 그 두배이다. 뉴욕타임스는 이번 폭탄의 크기가 2003년 미국이 이라크로 進軍한 이후 최대라고 보도했다. 이번 테러는 소수 순니파가 다수 시아파에 가한 것으로 추정된다. 시아파의 민병대가 순니파에 대한 보복에 나설 것으로 보인다. 시아파와 순니파의 이런 內戰으로 미국에 사는 순니, 시아파 사이도 나빠지고 있다고 한다. 잘못하면 이라크 內戰의 불똥이 미국으로 튈지 모를 일이다.

지금 이라크 문제의 본질은 미군과 叛軍의 싸움이 아니라 종파간의 內戰이기 때문에 더욱 해결이 어렵다. 미군이 항복한 이라크 군대를 해산하지 않고 질서 유지에 활용했더라면 이런 무정부 사태는 발생하지 않았을 것이다. 후세인이 敵이니 이라크 군대도 전부 敵이라고 간주하여 무장집단을 해산하니 이들 제대군인들이 무기를 가지고 반란군이나 민병대로 변하여 오늘의 內戰상태를 조성한 것이다.

대한민국의 건국시기 이승만 대통령은 일제시대에 훈련받았던 경찰과 군인들을 배제하지 않고 建軍과 反共투쟁에 기용했다. 요사이 좌파들이 주장하는대로 이승만 대통령이 日帝 경찰과 군인출신들을 敵으로 간주하여 구박했더라면 이들은 좌익편으로 돌아 建國을 방해했을 것이다. 일제 때 부역했던 악질 親日분자들만 처벌하고 반성한 관리들은 건국사업에 동원했던 이승만 대통령의 결단이 정당했다는 것을 이라크의 혼란이 반증하고 있다. 미국은 敵을 최대화해서 고생하고 있고, 이승만은 敵을 최소화해서 성공한 것이다.
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BAGHDAD, Feb. 3 — A mammoth truck bomb destroyed a popular central Baghdad market and ripped through scores of shops and apartments late Saturday afternoon, killing at least 130 people and wounding more than 300 in the worst of a series of horrific attacks against Shiites in recent weeks.

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An injured man was lifted onto a bed at a Baghdad hospital Saturday. The huge bomb struck shoppers in the largely Shiite enclave of Sadriya.
The attack appeared to be the work of a suicide bomber who detonated about 2,000 pounds of explosives about 5 p.m. in the bustling Sadiriya market, in a Shiite enclave of Baghdad, as shoppers finished buying food for dinner and men sipped coffee at the popular cafes nearby, the police and wire services reported. It was one of the deadliest attacks to hit the capital since the United States invasion almost four years ago.

The attack, the fourth huge bomb to strike a densely populated Shiite area since Jan. 16, seemed sure to inflame Shiite political and militia leaders just as more than 20,000 American troops begin to arrive in an attempt to stop the sectarian bloodletting that threatens to tear Iraq apart. A prime objective of the American military will be to prevent the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government and security forces from directing new military operations disproportionately at Sunni areas.

But the chaotic scene after the blast suggested how much pressure Shiite political leaders will face to avenge the recent attacks: as onlookers cursed the Iraqi government for not protecting them from Sunni militants, Shiite militiamen descended on the scene and angrily questioned people who they believed did not belong in the neighborhood. Many Shiites have come to view the militias — which have been accused of much of the sectarian violence — as their best protection against Sunni insurgents.

Hours after the bombing, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite, released a statement denouncing the attack as the work of “Saddamists” and Sunni insurgents.

The bomber struck close to the middle of the narrow market, which stretches for about an eighth of a mile, killing everyone nearby and dozens more in the apartment buildings and coffeehouses that line the market, witnesses said.

“Look at all these buildings,” shouted Qadir Ali Ismael, a 41-year-old vegetable seller who escaped the blast, as he angrily waved at the buildings. “There were families living in these apartments and they didn’t find anyone alive in there. All of those people were killed!”

Two buildings were flattened and 10 more seriously damaged. The attack left a crater 15 feet long, 10 feet wide and five feet deep. Shock waves seriously damaged some buildings a block away.

Police rushed frantically to rescue wounded people trapped inside buildings only to find that they could not break through damaged doors to get inside. By the time they did, some of the wounded had bled to death, said Abu Ali, who runs a health clinic a few blocks from the market.

“The doors wouldn’t open,” he said. “The rescuers are getting there too late.” He said he alone treated more than 40 people, mostly children and women, and quickly ran out of first aid supplies at his clinic.

As the loudspeaker of a nearby Shiite mosque called for people to donate blood, American Humvees took up positions on a street that leads to a nearby Sunni neighborhood.

Anger spread throughout the crowd that the attack was the work of Sunni insurgents. One elderly man, crying and shouting, was surrounded by younger men.

“They tried to kill us because we are Shia,” the older man said. “Why are there no bombs in Adhamiya,” he said, referring to a large Sunni district of Baghdad. “Maliki and the Americans are the sons of dogs.”

Grieving relatives rushed to hospitals. At the Imam Ali Hospital in Sadr City, the refrigerated portion of the morgue quickly filled and bodies were piled up next to it. People tried to donate blood but were told to go to a blood bank that is in a dangerous area of Baghdad, he said.

One man at the hospital, a Shiite who refused to give his name, said, “These people suffered under Saddam Hussein, and now they are still suffering.”

The blast was the largest attack since November, when a series of bombs killed about 200 people in Sadr City. It also appeared to be the deadliest single bomb blast since the invasion, eclipsing even the September 2005 attack in a Shiite area of Baghdad in which a bomber killed more than 120 people seeking work as day laborers.

Earlier on Saturday, Iraq’s most revered Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, repeated his call for Muslims to “stand together and repel division and reject sectarian rifts,” and he denounced those who he said were “deepening the sectarian disputes between the Muslims.”

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