Double bombing kills 23 in Baghdad

TWO near-simultaneous bombings targeted a crowded downtown Baghdad coffee shop and nearby restaurant, killing at least 23 people and wounding 26, according to police and hospital officials.

The blasts occurred as the mother of abducted American reporter Jill Carroll appealed for her daughter’s release after her captors threatened to kill her if US authorities don’t release all Iraqi women in military custody by tonight.

Iraqi authorities said six of the eight detained Iraqi women are expected to be released by the US military next week, but not as part of a bid to free Carroll, who was seized in Baghdad on January 7. American officials declined to comment.

A foreign assessment team also released a report saying it found numerous violations and reports of fraud during the December 15 parliamentary election but it did not question the final result. The International Mission for Iraqi Elections praised the ability to stage elections during a raging war and said there was an “urgent need ... for a formation of a government of true national unity”.

Iraq’s election commission prepared to announce final election results possibly as early as today, and the Interior Ministry said the number of troops and police on the streets would be sharply increased ahead of the announcement.

The bombing occurred on Baghdad’s Saadoun Street, the first targeting a coffee shop that killed 16 people and wounded 21, said police Lt Bilal Mohammed. Police gave conflicting accounts as to what caused the blast, ranging from a suicide attacker wearing an explosives belt to a rigged cigarette cart with artillery shells placed inside.

Seconds later, a blast caused by a planted bomb rocked a nearby restaurant, killing at least seven more people and injuring five, including two women, Mohammed added.

Alaa Abid Ali, a medic at Baghdad’s Kindi Hospital, said at least 14 bodies were received at his hospital while nine were taken to Ibn al-Nafis Hospital.

The blasts shattered nearby shop windows and destroyed several cars. Wooden tables and chairs were strewn over the bloodstained pavement on which rescue workers treated some of the wounded. Two men wailed above the dead bodies of two men covered with bloodstained blankets outside the coffee shop.

The appeal by Carroll’s mother, Mary Beth Carroll, was made on CNN one day ahead of the kidnappers’ deadline for their demands to be met.

Carroll told CNN that video images gave her hope that her daughter is alive but also have “shaken us about her fate”.

“I, her father and her sister are appealing directly to her captors to release this young woman who has worked so hard to show the sufferings of Iraqis to the world,” she said.

Al-Jazeera television on Tuesday showed the first video images of her since her capture. The report said the video gave authorities until tonight to free the Iraqi women or they would kill the reporter.