Winks Blog

40 + Killed 25 Wounded

Good Afternoon,

In new bloodshed, suspected insurgents set off a car bomb to stop a minibus carrying Shiite government employees in Baghdad, then shot and killed 15 of them, the government said. In another attack in the capital on Tuesday, two car bombs exploded in a commercial district, killing 15 other Iraqis, police said.

In northern Baghdad, gunmen set off a car bomb to intercept a minibus carrying employees of the Shiite Endowment, a government agency that cares for Shiite mosques in Iraq, to work, the organization said. The gunmen then opened fire on the workers, killing 15 and wounding seven, said Salah Abdul-Razzaq, an endowment spokesman.

An Interior Ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns, also said the blast occurred first and was followed by the ambush.

The U.S. military said 14 Iraqis were killed and four were wounded before the explosion, when the bus on which they were riding received small arms fire, then a BMW drove into the area and exploded as the wounded were being taken to a hospital. The car bomb caused no further injuries, according to the military statement. The discrepancy could not immediately be explained.

AP Television News video showed shattered glass and shoes in the middle of the highway, with the burned-out hulk of the car that exploded on the side of the road.

A similar attack occurred last month in southern Iraq against the Sunni Endowment, the government agency that cares for Sunni Arab mosques in Iraq amid sectarian violence and retaliatory killings that have been rising since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra.

Also Tuesday, two car bombs exploded near one another in western Baghdad, killing 15 people and wounding 25, police said.

The explosions occurred near a gas station in Baiyaa, a commercial area with a mixed Sunni Arab and Shiite population, a policeman said on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

A parked car bomb struck a market in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood in southwestern Baghdad, killing two people and wounding seven, police said.

At least 13 other people were killed in shootings and bombings elsewhere, and four bodies were pulled from the Tigris River in Suwaira, about 45 miles south of Baghdad.

posted by Wink @ 2:22 PM