BAGHDAD: Rush hour bombs mostly targeting Shia areas of Baghdad killed 25 people yesterday in the first major wave of attacks in the capital since a general election last month.
The apparently coordinated blasts struck as Iraq’s Shia majority marked the birth of a venerated figure in their faith, and came as officials tallied votes from the April 30 election amid a protracted surge in bloodshed that has killed more than 3,300 people this year.
At least nine car bombs went off through the morning, when traffic jams the streets.
Smoke could be seen rising above several areas of the capital, and journalists reported several shopfronts badly damaged and nearby cars reduced to mangled wrecks of metal.
At least 80 people were wounded, overall.
In Karrada, where three people died, the owner of a garage said the blast was caused by a militant posing as a customer who left his car, asking for the brakes to be fixed.
“He said he would leave the car and go looking for spare parts, and then he left,” said the man who identified himself as Abu Nuri.
“Only one of my employees was in the shop when a huge explosion went off. He fell down, and smoke was everywhere. Many people were crying, and others were running away.”
Two car bombs also exploded near a traffic police headquarters in the eastern Baladiyat neighbourhood, and blasts also hit Sadr City, Urr, Jamila, and Maamal, all of which are Shia-majority.
Another vehicle rigged with explosives was detonated in the mostly-Sunni area of Arab Jubour, killing three, while a roadside bomb went off near a police patrol in southeast Baghdad, killing one.
Elsewhere, two people, including a young boy, were killed in a rocket attack just north of the capital, while two others died in a car bomb in the town of Balad and a police officer was killed in the main northern city of Mosul.
The attacks came as Shias marked the birthday of Imam Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) and a key figure in Shia Islam.
Interior ministry spokesman Brigadier General Saad Maan, who has criticised the media in the past for exaggerating the level of unrest, played down the city-wide violence, saying in a statement that only one civilian had been confirmed wounded.
AFP
