Iraqi school is finally in session

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Hundreds of students gather for the opening ceremony of the Huda girls’ school Monday in Tarmiyah, Iraq. The school became notorious when bombs were discovered during reconstruction. The bombs were disarmed by U.S. troops.


Iraqi school is finally in session
By Travis J. Tritten, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Wednesday, January 7, 2009

TARMIYAH, Iraq — Singing and speeches echoed through the sun-shot courtyard of the Huda girls’ school as hundreds of students gathered for a reopening Monday.

Over 1,000 high school and middle school students will now begin classes at Huda.

But many of those voices could have been silenced. In 2007, reconstruction contractors — subsidized by the U.S. coalition but bribed by insurgents — wired bombs into the building’s foundation.

Explosives had been laid under the thresholds of classroom doorways, and propane canister bombs were set in the basement of the school. It was a brazen and bloodthirsty show of strength by al-Qaida in Iraq, which in 2006 and 2007 held sway in this small town north of Baghdad.

"They want to kill everybody," said Muhammad Ibrahim Jassim, the school’s administrative supervisor for the Ministry of Education.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=59828