22 killed and many wounded in suicide car bombings

At least 22 people were killed and more than 35 injured when two suicide car bombs exploded in a well known square in central Baghdad today.

Iraqi officials said the attack in Tahrir Square damaged shops and set fire to other cars. The remains of several bodies were seen lying in the street as firefighters fought the blaze, which sent a large plume of black smoke up into the sky.

Iraqi police first said the attack involved one suicide car bomb, but the US Embassy later said two had exploded, killing 22 people, including two American contract workers.

Officials at two hospitals said more than 35 people were wounded in the attack, apparently all of them Iraqis.

The wounded included five school girls who were hurt when the blasts damaged al-Aqida Secondary School and a minibus driving by with students from nearby Dijla Elementary School, hospital officials and parents said.

The attack was part of a surge in violence that has killed nearly 290 people - many of them Iraqi soldiers and police – since Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari’s new government was sworn in April 28.

Yesterday, car bombs struck a market south of Baghdad and a police bus in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, killed at least 25 people. Iraqi soldiers also clashed with insurgents in the northern city of Tal Afar, and more than a dozen bodies were uncovered in a rubbish dump on the outskirts of Baghdad – some of them blindfolded and shot execution-style.

The burning vehicles damaged in today’s attack included several SUVs, according to an AP photographer at the scene. That is the kind of car that Western contract workers often use in Iraq.

Iman Norman rushed to al-Kindi Hospital to be with her daughter, Lana, 12, one of several school girls who were wounded aboard the minibus. Iman said the students escaped through the bus windows in their bloodied uniforms after the bomb damaged its doors. Lana’s injury wasn’t serious, but one student lost an eye.