40 killed in Baghdad as bombers target mosque and market

AT LEAST 40 people were killed when four bombs ripped through Shi’ite areas of Baghdad last night — the worst violence the capital has seen in months — Iraqi officials said.

A US civilian contractor also died in a separate attack.

The violence underscored the fragile nature of the security gains in Iraq at a time when US forces are preparing to withdraw by the end of this year and the challenges facing the state department personnel and US contractors who would stay on after the US military is gone.

The first three bombs went off in quick succession in an area of south-western Baghdad shortly after 7pm local time.

One targeted a Shi’ite mosque, another exploded just outside a popular market, while the third went off inside the market where people were doing their evening shopping ahead of the Muslim weekend, Iraqi police officials said.

The officials said 34 people died and 82 others were injured in the three blasts. An official from Baghdad’s Yarmouk hospital confirmed the casualty figures.

Iraqi resident Jabir Ali said he was about 200 yards away when one of the bombs went off near a barber shop where his cousin works.

“I saw many people killed and injured. I went to see my cousin. The glass at his shop was broken and he was injured in his head, chest and hand by the glass,” said Ali, who drove his cousin to the hospital.

About one hour later, a parked car bomb targeting a police patrol killed six people, including one policeman and five bystanders in a different area of south-western Baghdad, hospital officials said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Sunni extremists such as al-Qaida in Iraq generally tend to target Shi’ite mosques, neighbourhoods and Iraqi security forces.

The US civilian killed yesterday was working for an agency assisting the US government, said David Ranz, a spokesman for the US Embassy in Baghdad.

“An American civilian working with an implementing partner of the United States Agency for International Development in Iraq was killed in a terrorist attack today in Baghdad. Three additional civilians were wounded in the attack, including one American citizen,” he said.

The name of the victim was being withheld until relatives are notified, he added.

He gave no information about where or when the attack took place.

Iraqi police officials in eastern Baghdad said a bomb exploded near foreign security company vehicles travelling through eastern Baghdad early in the afternoon, killing one foreigner in the convoy and injuring three other people.

Earlier this week, a convoy carrying French Embassy staff was targeted by a roadside bomb in the Karradah neighbourhood. No one was killed in that incident.