A string of car bombings killed over 40 people across Iraq on
Tuesday, making it the second bloodiest day this week in the
war-ravaged country.
In a deadliest attack on Tuesday evening, a car bomb in a market
blast in northern Baghdad killed 22, with another 58injured, an
Interior Ministry source said.
The source said the blast occurred around 7:30 PM (15:30 GMT)in
a market in Husaniya, some 30 km north of the capital. The police
defused an un-detonated car bomb after arriving at the scene,
avoiding a potentially higher death toll.
Just hours earlier, a suicide car bomb in Hilla, 90 km south of
Baghdad killed 12 and wounded over 30, police said. The Hilla
attack took place at around 6:00 PM (14:00 GMT) when a suicide
bomber drove an explosive-laden car and blew up the vehicle near a
car shop.
The town of Hilla has witnessed a number of bloody attacks in
the past.
On Feb. 28, 2005, a car bomb attack at a medical center here
killed more than 110 Iraqi civilians and wounded around 200,marking
the deadliest single attack in Iraq since the US-led invasion in
March, 2003.
Also on Tuesday, a third blast occurred at around 9:00 PM (17:00
GMT) when a bomb hidden in a plastic bag went off outside a bakery
in east of Baghdad, killing at least nine people and injuring 10,
police said.
The blast rocked the New Baghdad area, a mixed neighborhood in
the eastern part of the city.
In another development, the bodies of two Marines missing as a
result of a helicopter crash in the western Anbar province last
Saturday have been recovered, a US military statement said on
Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, mortar rounds hit the heavily guarded
Interior Ministry in central Baghdad, killing two government
workers.
Police said the mortar round, targeting the Interior Ministry
compound, killed two female employees and wounded three others. The
past two days saw an intensifying of violence in the war-torn
country.
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On Monday, around 40 people were also killed in separate attacks,
including a car bomb that killed two CBS crew members and severely
injured a female correspondent for the network.
(Xinhua News Agency May 31, 2006)
