Nine killed in Baghdad car bombs

Suicide bombs targeting government officials explode near checkpoint, killing at least nine people and wounding 23 At least nine people have been killed and 23 injured when suicide bombers detonated two cars packed with explosives outside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, officials said. A military spokesman, Major General Qassim al-Moussawi, said the bombers appeared to be targeting the motorcades of two senior government officials – one from the military, the other from the cabinet – who were heading to work. The cars blew up shortly after 8am local time, among a queue of vehicles waiting to be cleared into the zone, which houses Iraq’s parliament and ministry offices, as well as several foreign embassies. Two police officers and an official at Al-Yarmouk hospital said nine people, including five Iraqi soldiers, were killed and 23 people were wounded in the attack. Moussawi put the number of dead at six, with 14 wounded, but added that “this is not a final death toll”. The vehicles exploded about 400 yards from the checkpoint on a western road between the Green Zone and Baghdad airport. Minutes later two more roadside bombs exploded a few miles away in what appeared to be an unrelated strike. Police said nine passersby were wounded in the attack outside a restaurant in Jadriyah, a Sunni-Shia neighbourhood on the south-eastern side of the Tigris river. Violence has abated across Iraq since the sectarian fighting a few years ago that brought the country to the brink of civil war. Deadly bombings and shootings still occur on a near daily basis as insurgents seek to highlight Iraq’s continued instability as US troops prepare to withdraw by the end of the year. Iraq Global terrorism Middle East guardian.co.uk

Posted by on April 18, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.