Half-hour bomb barrage kills 47 in Baghdad
A barrage of co-ordinated bomb and rocket attacks in eastern Baghdad killed at least 47 people and wounded more than 200 within half an hour, police and hospital officials said.
The latest spasm of violence yesterday – which included explosives planted in apartments, car bombs and several rocket and mortar attacks on mainly Shiite neighbourhoods in the capital – came even as Prime Minister Nouri Maliki said Iraqi forces should have control over most of the country by year’s end.
The Baghdad bombings – centred on neighbourhoods controlled by Shiite militias, some of which Sunni Arabs accuse of running death squads – brought the day’s death toll across the country to at least 68.
Attackers rented apartments and shops in buildings a few days ago and planted explosives in them, detonating them by remote control almost simultaneously last night, said Maj. Gen. Jihad Liaabi, director of the Interior Ministry’s counterterrorism unit.
One of the targeted buildings was a medical centre housing doctors’ offices in al-Hamza Square on the outskirts of the Sadr City slum in east Baghdad, he told state television.
The attacks occurred between 6pm and 6:30pm and included a car bomb at a market, another behind a telephone exchange building and several rocket and mortar attacks, police said.
Police and witnesses said bodies had still not been recovered from the buildings and the death toll could rise.
Earlier in the day, a suicide car bomber killed two people at a gas station, while a British Embassy convoy was targeted in the upscale Mansour neighbourhood in western Baghdad. Two passers-by were wounded in the convoy attack, police said.
The bloodshed was part of a violent week that has left hundreds of Iraqis dead.
Maliki said Iraqi forces will assume responsibility for Dhi Qar province in the south in September, making it the second of Iraq’s 18 provinces that local forces would take control over.
“This makes us optimistic and proud because we managed to fulfil our promise,” Maliki said. Iraqi authorities took over Muthanna province in the south from the British in July.
Dhi Qar is populated mainly by Shiite Muslims. Compared to more volatile areas, such as Anbar province in the west and Baghdad, it has been spared much of the sectarian violence. However, US commanders recently expressed concern about the growing influence of Shiite militias in the area, many of whom they say receive support from Iran.
Handing over territory from coalition control to Iraqi control is a key part of any eventual drawdown of US troops in the country.
US President George Bush has insisted that American troops must remain in Iraq until the country’s forces are capable of full control.
Despite the rash of violence during the past week, US officials have lauded the results of a security crackdown in the capital that they say has resulted in a dramatic fall in sectarian killings. They reported the murder rate in Baghdad dropped almost 50% in August compared to July, but that figure could not be independently confirmed.
