Baghdad: Over 10 simultaneous blasts kill at least 76
Rapid fire explosions, involving booby-trapped cars, roadside bombs, mortar strikes leave 200 wounded in mostly Shiite neighborhoods.
BAGHDAD – Rapid-fire bombings and mortar strikes in mostly Shi’ite neighborhoods of Baghdad killed at least 76 people and wounded nearly 200 on Tuesday, calling into question the ability of Iraqi security forces to protect the capital.
The blasts – at least 13 separate attacks – came just two days after gunmen in Baghdad held held a Christian congregation hostage in a siege that left 58 people dead. Hundreds of Christians gathered at a downtown church Tuesday morning to mourn their lost brethren.
“They murdered us today and on Sunday, they killed our brother, the Christians,” said Hussein al-Saiedi, a 26- year-old resident of the Shi’ite slum of Sadr City where 21 people were killed in the most deadly incident that day. He said he was talking to friends on a busy street when the blast occurred.
Bombing at an Iraqi army base in Baghdad kills 12, injures at least 20
Just five days after the United States declared the end of its combat mission in Iraq, U.S. soldiers opened fire Sunday morning on suicide bombers who snuck into an Iraqi army base in Baghdad, a U.S. military spokesman said.
The assailants detonated a car bomb outside an army division headquarters housed in the former defense ministry building, killing at least 12 people, most of them Iraqi soldiers, authorities said. The blast wounded at least 20 people at the complex, where a bombing last month targeting recruits killed more than 60 people.
A gun battle raged for more than two hours after the explosion as Iraqi soldiers tried to corral the two bombers who managed to get inside the base, Iraqi officials at the scene said. A small contingent of U.S. soldiers is based at the facility.
The assailants, who wore vests rigged with explosives, threw grenades as Iraqi soldiers shot at them from a distance, fearing that their bullets could detonate the bombs. American soldiers backed them up with “suppressive fire,” said Lt. Col. Eric Bloom, the U.S. military spokesman. U.S. helicopters, drones and explosives experts also responded.