Winks Blog

3 Car Bombers Kill 19, 21 Corpses Found, Gunman Kills 9 Member Shiite Family in Their Home

Good Morning,


BAGHDAD, Iraq - A car bomb exploded near a crowded bus stop in eastern Baghdad during morning rush hour on Wednesday, killing 11 people and wounding 27 in a mostly Shiite area, police said.

The blast in Kamaliyah neighborhood at 8:45 a.m. also occurred about 50 yards from the Shiite al-Rasoul mosque but did not damage the small building, said police Capt. Mohammed Abdul-Ghani and police Maj. Mahir Hamad.

"A Volkswagen car exploded right near the bus stop, hitting a group of people, including women and children who were waiting to take a bus to a fruit and vegetable market," said one witness, Abu Haider al-Kaabi.

The poor area of Baghdad appeared to be the latest target of widespread sectarian violence in the capital involving Sunni Arabs and Shiites. On Nov. 23, suspected Sunni insurgents carried out the deadliest single attack of the Iraq war by using bombs and mortars to kill 215 people in the capital's Shiite slum of Sadr City.

Two other car bombs exploded in the mostly Shiite area of New Baghdad and another one in the largely Sunni area of Yamouk, killing a total of four people and wounding 16, police said.

An announcement at 9 p.m. said that the tortured, bullet-ridden bodies of 21 kidnap victims had been found on the streets of the capital.

In other attacks in Iraq, men armed with guns and explosives destroyed a small Shiite shrine in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, early Wednesday, causing no injuries, and gunmen killed a nine-member Shiite family in an attack on their house in Hasna village south of the capital, police said.

Iraqi troops also opened fire on two suicide car bombers who drove up to the headquarters of the Iraqi army's 2nd Battalion near the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk, but the attackers set off their explosions, killing four soldiers and wounding 10, said Iraqi Maj. Gen. Anwar Mohammed Amin. The base protects the area's oil pipelines.

In Musayyib, 40 miles south of Baghdad, three roadside bombs missed a police patrol, killing one civilian and wounding one, and damaging a nearby municipal council building, police said.

Have a nice day.

posted by Wink @ 11:00 AM