Dozens killed in Iraq car bombing
6/17/2008 - 7:19:21 PMA car bombing in Baghdad has left at least 51 killed, Iraqi police said tonight.
A police official said 75 people were wounded in the attack in the northern Shiite district of Hurriyah.
Witnesses said the car exploded near a two-storey building with shops on the bottom floor and residential flats on top.
Initially the death toll was thought to be much less, but increased after authorities extinguished the fire that had engulfed the building and found more bodies inside.
The attack, which was the deadliest in more than three months, occurred just before 6pm local time (4pm BST) as the market in Hurriyah was packed with shoppers preparing for their evening meals.
Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack, but it bore the hallmarks of al Qaida in Iraq, which is known to use car bombs and suicide attacks.
A soft drink vendor who witnessed the blast, Kamil Jassim, said a nearby generator caught fire following the blast, partially collapsing the building and burning several other houses.
An official said most of those killed were burned to death or suffocated.
The blast shattered the relative calm in the capital amid stepped up security measures. American commanders have consistently said they have al Qaida in Iraq on the run, but warned that the insurgents retain the ability to stage high-profile attacks.
Today’s attack was the deadliest car bombing since March 6, when a twin bombing killed 68 people in a crowded shopping district in the central Baghdad district of Karradah.
It occurred on the same day the Iraqi parliament announced it will start holding sessions outside the US-protected Green Zone in the autumn – the latest bid by Iraqi authorities to bolster public confidence in the security gains and assert their independence.
In other violence today, an Iraqi state TV reporter was shot dead near his apartment in the northern city of Mosul, police said.
Colleagues said 50-year-old, Muhieddin Abdul-Hamid, was a local newsreader for the station in Mosul, the centre of an ongoing US.-Iraqi operation against the most prominent remaining stronghold of al Qaida in Iraq, a Sunni extremist group.
Excluding Mr Abdul-Hamid’s death, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 129 journalists and 50 media support workers have been killed since the war started.