Monday, June 22, 2009

Spate of Bombings Target Baghdad

Monday, June 22, 2009
18:04 Mecca time, 15:04 GMT

Spate of bombings target Baghdad

Three blasts have shaken the Iraqi capital leaving at least six people dead, including a child.

Nearly 30 other people were injured in Monday's series of attacks, security and hospital officials said.

The blasts appeared to mark a rise in violence in the run up to the planned pullout of US troops from Iraqi towns and cities by the end of June.

In the first attack, a roadside bomb hit a minibus in the Shia neighbourhood of Sadr City, killing three university students who were on their way to write their final exams.

Twelve other students and the minibus driver were hurt in the morning rush-hour attack.

A woman and a four-year-old child were among three people killed and four others were injured when a bomb targeting a police patrol exploded in Shaab, in northeast Baghdad, hospital officials said.

In the west of the capital, a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the municipal council building in Abu Ghraib, killing seven people and wounding 13, police said.

In the commercial neighbourhood of Karrada in the centre of the city, a car bombing killed five people and injured 20.

In Diyala province, three soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb that struck their patrol east of the provincial capital Baquba, officials said.

In Khalees, also in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, a former al-Qaeda member who had recently been released from the US prison facility at Camp Bucca was assassinated by a gunman.

Violence has dropped in Iraq in recent months, with May seeing the lowest Iraqi death toll since the 2003 invasion.

But attacks remain common, particularly in Baghdad and the main northern city of Mosul.

Source: Agencies

No comments: