Major casualties in further Baghdad bomb attack

Scores of casualties were reported today when a car bomb exploded at a bank in northern Baghdad where police were collecting their salaries today.

The blast, in the city’s Oteifiyah area, was part of a string of bombings in the Iraqi capital today where tensions are rising ahead of the election on January 30.

Earlier, vehicle bombs exploded near the Australian Embassy, a police station in eastern Baghdad and at an Iraqi military garrison at a disused airfield in the capital.