Baghdad attacks leave 27 dead

A mortar barrage followed minutes later by a car bomb struck Baghdad’s upscale Karradah district today, killing a total of 27 people and wounding 63, police said.

The explosions occurred mid-morning in a religiously mixed neighbourhood controlled by a major Shiite party.

The blasts came two days after US President George Bush approved plans to send more US and Iraqi troops into the capital city to curb rising sectarian violence.

Several mortars landed in the district, some destroying a bank and an apartment building that later collapsed in flames, said Interior Ministry secretary Saadoun Abu al-Ula. The others exploded in the middle of busy streets crowded with traffic.

The car bomb exploded just blocks away near a petrol station, shattering storefronts and spraying flaming fuel onto homes and stores, the Interior Ministry said.

Police Colonel Abbas Mohammed Salman gave the casualty toll as 27 dead and 63 wounded but said the deaths could rise because many of the injuries were severe.

Karradah is among the city’s most upscale districts and home to several leading politicians from the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the country’s biggest Shiite party.

Dozens of dazed, blood-soaked survivors shuffled through the rubble as emergency crews loaded weeping victims into ambulances, witnesses said.

The complex attack occurred as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki was en route home from Washington, where he discussed the deteriorating security situation with President Bush. The president agreed to send more US soldiers onto Baghdad streets to try to curb sectarian violence.

A steady rise in violence since Maliki’s government took office on May 20 has drawn new attention to sectarian militias and death squads, whose tit-for-tat killings have raised fears the country may be unravelling.

Also today, gunmen killed four security guards outside a Sunni mosque in western Baghdad, police said.

During his address yesterday to a joint session of congress, Maliki insisted that his country is a front line in the war on terrorism and said those behind rampant violence are perverting the Islamic faith.

“Do not imagine that this problem is solely an Iraqi problem, because the terrorist front represents a threat to all free countries and free people of the world,” Maliki said.

Baghdad’s religiously mixed communities such as Karradah have become the focus of sectarian violence. US officials believe control of the capital, the political, cultural, transport and economic hub of the country, will determine the future of Iraq.

Much of the violence has occurred in greater Baghdad in what US officials have described as a “must-win” battle between militants and the new government for the future of Iraq.

The United Nations reported last week that about 6,000 people were killed in Iraq in May and June.