IRAQ: Street cleaners clear up after at least 10 people are killed and 37 are wounded when two bombs explode in Baghdad's mainly Shi'ite Sadr City

Record ID: 357451

  • Title: IRAQ: Street cleaners clear up after at least 10 people are killed and 37 are wounded when two bombs explode in Baghdad's mainly Shi'ite Sadr City
  • Date: 6th January 2012
  • Summary: SADR CITY, BAGHDAD, IRAQ (JANUARY 5, 2012) (REUTERS): CAR AT BLAST SCENE CAR WITH SHARDS OF GLASS ON ROAD NEAR IT BLOOD STAIN ON GROUND PEOPLE STANDING NEAR CAR PEOPLE EXAMINING CAR (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) LOCAL RESIDENT HAIDER, SAYING: "A bomb was there (pointing), so when they (police) moved to the other side, a motorbike went up here , hurting people who were in the
  • Embargoed: 21st January 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq, Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: Crime,Conflict
  • Reuters ID: LVA2ZS86FZBR467SE8O417BKF4M3
  • Story Text: Two bombs exploded in a mainly Shi'ite Muslim area of Iraq's capital Baghdad on Thursday (January 5, 2012), killing at least 10 people and wounding 37, police and hospital sources said.
    One bomb was planted on a parked motorcycle and the other was a roadside device which went off nearby, a police source said.
    The attacks occurred in the poor Sadr City neighbourhood of northeast Baghdad.
    An unidentified police officer said the motorbike bomb in Sadr City exploded placed near labourers waiting to be hired for work blew up.
    A local resident who gave his name as Haider said: "A bomb was there, so when they (police) moved to the other side, a motorbike went up here, hurting people who were in the minibuses."
    Police said they found and defused two other bombs in the area.
    Later on Thursday morning at least 12 people were killed and 32 others wounded when two car bombs exploded in Kadhimiya district, a mainly Shi'ite area in northwestern Baghdad, Iraqi police said.
    Iraq is still plagued by a deadly Sunni Muslim insurgency and Shi'ite militias nearly nine years after the U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.
    Sadr City is a stronghold of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose Mehdi militia once fought U.S. and Iraqi troops. He is now a key ally of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
    A political crisis that erupted shortly after U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq on December 18 has revived concerns about sectarian strife in Iraq, which teetered on the brink of civil war in 2006-7.
    Maliki angered rivals when he asked parliament to have his Sunni deputy Saleh al-Mutlaq removed and sought an arrest warrant for Iraq's Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi on charges he ran death squads.
    On Tuesday, members of the Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc boycotted Iraq's parliament and cabinet, accusing Maliki's bloc of governing alone in a power-sharing coalition that was supposed to ease sectarian tensions.
    A spate of bombings that killed 72 people in mainly Shi'ite areas of Baghdad a few days after the political crisis began have only deepened the fears of rising sectarian tensions.
    The inclusion of Iraqiya in the governing coalition was widely considered crucial to prevent a slide back into the kind of sectarian violence that was unleashed after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Thousands were killed in the violence.
    Many Sunnis have complained of being sidelined in the political process since Saddam was ousted and the majority Shi'ites dominated the government.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register