Scores killed as car bombs rip through Baghdad square

Two car bombs exploded in a main square of central Baghdad today, killing at least 54 people and injuring 146.

The carefully co-ordinated attack in Tayaran Square at 7am local time involved a bomb in a parked car and a suicide car bomb, both of which exploded simultaneously near a police patrol and a crowd of Iraqis gathering to apply for work as day labourers, said police Lt Bilal Ali.

He said at least 54 Iraqis, including seven policemen, were killed.

Police said the suicide attacker drove up in a mini-bus, pretended to hire day labourers, then set off the explosive as they got into his vehicle.

The two explosions heard later were roadside bombs targeting Iraqi police patrols which injured two policemen and seven Iraqi civilians, said police Capt Mohammed Abdul-Ghani.

The explosions, about 100 feet apart, set fire to least 10 other cars in the area, Ali said. Gunfire also could be heard as survivors fled the scene, but it was not immediately known if that involved police or snipers hiding nearby.

In Baghdad, where many people are unemployed, scores of Iraqis gather in the square early in the morning to wait for mini-buses or private cars that stop and hire them for the day as construction workers, cleaners or painters. Nearby, small stands are set up to sell the labourers a breakfast of tea and egg sandwiches.

Shop owner Khalil Ibrahim, 41, said: “In the first explosion, I saw people falling over, some of them blown apart. When the other bomb went off seconds later, it slammed me into a wall of my store and I fainted.”

He was speaking from a local hospital where he had been taken with shrapnel wounds to his head and back.

Tayaran Square is near several government ministries and a bridge that crosses the Tigris River to the heavily-fortified Green Zone, where Iraq’s parliament and the US and British embassies are located.

Not long after the attack, two other large explosions could be heard in the area – one at 8.25am and the other at 8.40 – but the cause was not immediately known.