Baghdad triple car bombings kill 40
20 others die as truck slams into bus stop
Agencies, Baghdad
Three massive car bomb blasts rocked the centre of the Iraqi capital Saturday, killing at least 40 people and wounding another 87, security officials said. A medic in the city's Al-Kindi hospital confirmed 34 deaths and said 56 people were receiving treatment after the explosions, which ripped through a crowded street as Iraqis were hurrying home before nightfall. A defence official told AFP the first blast had appeared to target an Iraqi army Humvee jeep patrolling in the central Rusafa district at sunset. There were soldiers among the casualties, but he could not say how many. The second blast erupted immediately after the first with the third a few moments later, rocking windows 500 metres (yards) away on the opposite bank of the Tigris. Shortly afterwards gunfire erupted around the city. Ten shops were burned out in the blasts near Al-Wathba square, a historic commercial area popular with Shia Kurds, and 13 civilian cars destroyed, said an interior ministry official, warning the death toll was expected to rise. Around an hour after the detonations, five more blasts were heard, apparently mortars fired by one of the city's warring armed groups. Saturday's attack followed a major security operation the previous day a short distance further north in the Fadhel neighbourhood, in which Iraqi and US forces raided suspected insurgent hideouts and arrested 28 suspects. Earlier a truck driving at high speed slammed into a bus stop in a town south of Baghdad yesterday, killing about 20 people and wounding 15, police said. The truck hit a group of Iraqis in Al-Wahada, 35km south of Baghdad, as they were waiting for buses to the capital, said police Lt. Muhammed Al-Shemari. He said it didn't appear to be an accident because the truck, an empty fuel tanker, didn't have a flat tire or any other obvious mechanical problems that would have caused the crash. It was not immediately clear if the driver had survived, Al-Shemari said. Scores of people are killed each week in Iraq by roadside bombs and car bombs, many of which are driven by suicide attackers. But there have been few reports of attacks during which a driver has ploughed into a crowd in a vehicle without explosives hidden inside. (AFP, AP)
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