Over 18 Boys Die In Bomb Attack Near Iraq Park

AP BRIAN MURPHY February 27, 2007 01:24 PM

A car bomb exploded Tuesday near a park popular with young soccer players, killing at least 18 boys in a city west of Baghdad known as a center of the Sunni insurgency, police said. The attack occurred just three days after more than 50 people were killed outside a mosque in a nearby village where the imam had spoken out against the group al-Qaida inIraq -- pointing to an increasingly bloody attempts to silence its opponents. But the deaths of the boys, aged 10 to 15, left authorities grasping for a possible motive.

The bomb-rigged car blew apart late Tuesday afternoon while the boys were playing in central Ramadi, about 70 miles west of Baghdad. Both local police and state television said 18 boys died.

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