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June 20 (Reuters) – Twin car bomb blasts in Baghdad on Sunday targeted the headquarters of the Trade Bank of Iraq, one of the public sector’s most active financial institutions, and killed 18 people, a government official said.
Baghdad security spokesman Major General Qassim al-Moussawi said 42 people were injured in the bombings. (Reporting by Muhanad Mohammed; Editing by Matthew Jones)
June 20 (Reuters) – Twin car bombs exploded in a car park of a private bank in central Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least six people and wounding 42, sources in the police and the Iraqi Interior Ministry said.
The building housing the bank was heavily damaged in the blasts and two of the dead were police officers guarding a nearby Interior Ministry office that issues Iraqi ID cards, the ministry sources said. (Writing by Michael Christie; Editing by Matthew Jones)
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The civilian death toll in Iraq jumped to 211 people compared with the previous month, officials said on Monday, a sign of rising violence in the run-up to a March 7 parliamentary election.
World
Overall violence in Iraq has fallen in the last two years, but a series of blasts in recent months shattered the peace before a national vote, seen as a crucial test as Iraq emerges from years of war, sanctions and sectarian slaughter.
In January, 135 people died violent deaths.
On February 5, twin car bombs killed at least 40 people and wounded 145 others in Iraq’s holy city of Kerbala as hundreds of thousands of Shi’ite pilgrims observed a religious rite.
Sunni Islamist insurgents such as al Qaeda and members of Saddam Hussein’s outlawed Baath party are still capable of staging devastating attacks.
The attacks appear aimed to undermine Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Shi’ite-led government before the parliamentary election and highlight the shortcomings of the security forces.
At least 100,000 Iraqis have been killed in the more than 6-1/2 years since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, according to www.iraqbodycount.org. Some groups put the toll much higher.
(Reporting by Baghdad bureau; Editing by Rania El Gamal)
Mosul, Iraq – Four people died in attacks near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Monday, police said, in the latest in string of clashes and bombings in the area.
Three civilians were killed and four others were wounded by stray bullets when Iraqi police officers and unidentified gunmen exchanged fire in the al-Salam district east of Mosul, a source in the city’s police department told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa on Monday.
In a separate incident, an Iraqi police officer was killed and two others were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded as they patrolled the Hay al-Zahur district north of Mosul, roughly 400 kilometres north of Baghdad.
The attacks came shortly after Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called for national reconciliation following three bombings on Sunday.
“National reconciliation must be an open door, through which all who believe … in the political process can enter,” al-Maliki told a gathering of branches of Iraq’s prominent al-Abid tribe on Monday.
“We must pass through that door, lest we return to violence, murder, racism, and communal strife,” the Iraqi prime minister said.
His speech followed a surge in violence across the country. At least 31 people were killed and 64 were injured in three bombings in Baghdad and Mosul on Sunday.
In Sunday’s first bombing, Baghdad’s deadliest in months, at least 28 people were killed and 54 were injured by a suicide bomber on a motorcycle outside a police recruitment centre.
Later on Sunday, three people died and 10 more were injured in twin car bombings in different districts of western Mosul.
On February 20, Iraqi security forces in Mosul began a push, dubbed “Operation New Hope,” to arrest militants from al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Security forces have made more than 100 arrests from so-called “hot” neighbourhoods in Mosul, but militants have retaliated with increasingly regular attacks against the police. (dpa)
Baghdad – Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Monday urged Iraqis to come together in a process of national reconciliation following Sunday’s bombing in Baghdad, the deadliest the city has seen in months.
“National reconciliation must be an open door, through which all who believe … in the political process can enter,” al-Maliki told a gathering of branches of Iraq’s prominent al-Abid tribe on Monday.
“We must pass through that door, lest we return to violence, murder, racism, and communal strife,” the Iraqi prime minister said.
His remarks followed a surge in violence across the country. At least 31 people were killed and 64 were injured in three bombings in Baghdad and the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Sunday.
In Sunday’s first bombing, Baghdad’s deadliest in months, at least 28 people were killed and 54 were injured when a man driving a motorcycle detonated explosives strapped to his body outside a police recruitment centre.
Later on Sunday, three people died and 10 more were injured in twin car bombings in different districts of western Mosul, some 400 kilometres north of Baghdad. (dpa)
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