IRAQ: A string of bomb blasts in predominantly Shi'ite Muslim provinces of Iraq killed at least 24 people, police and medics said

Record ID: 357676

  • Title: IRAQ: A string of bomb blasts in predominantly Shi'ite Muslim provinces of Iraq killed at least 24 people, police and medics said
  • Date: 15th July 2013
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) ABU ALI, RESIDENT OF AREA, SAYING: "Security forces have recently tightened up security measures on public places and markets, forcing Al Qaeda and terrorists groups to target secure residential areas." (JOURNALIST ASKING: "Do you know the number of casualties?) ABU ALI: "Around 9 to 10 people were killed in the blast and the number of the wounded is a
  • Embargoed: 30th July 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVAACTRXFPQ2SI7WSFKRNLSVCOP4
  • Story Text: A number of deadly bomb blast killed 24 people across Iraq on Sunday (July 14) as part of a sustained campaign of militant attacks this year that has prompted fears of wider conflict in a country where ethnic Kurds and Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims have yet to find a stable power-sharing compromise.
    Two car bombs went off in a market in Nassiriya, 300 km (185 miles) southeast of Baghdad, killing two people. Another car bomb killed four at a busy market in the Shi'ite shrine city of Kerbala, 80 km (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad, police said.
    Another bomb went off when a suicide bomber killed at least four people in a Shi'ite mosque in the town of Mussayab, and in Kut city a car bomb went off in a busy market, killing five, police and medics said.
    Three bombs exploded in quick succession near the headquarters of a Shi'ite political party in the southern oil hub of Basra, 420 km (260 miles) southeast of Baghdad, killing at least eight people, police said.

    "Security forces have recently tightened up security measures on public places and markets, forcing Al Qaeda and terrorists groups to target secure residential areas," said Abu Ali, a resident of the area, adding, "Around 9 to 10 people were killed in the blast and the number of the wounded is around 30."
    A traumatised brother of one victim who was killed in the attack questioned when the continued suffering would end.

    "I ran to the scene looking for my youngest brother. I ran and I found him lying dead on the ground. I saw dead children. Three children of this house have been killed and a four-year old child of that one was killed too. Does God or Mohammed approve such an act? Why? And until when we will continue to suffer?" Karrar Faiz said.
    It was not clear who was behind Sunday's explosions, but Sunni Islamist insurgents, including the al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq, have been regaining strength in recent months, security sources say.
    Sectarian tensions have been inflamed by the civil war in neighbouring Syria, which is fast becoming a region-wide proxy war, drawing in Shi'ite and Sunni fighters from Iraq and beyond to fight on opposite sides of the conflict.
    On Saturday, two bombings near Sunni mosques in Baghdad killed at least 23 people who had come to pray after breaking their daily fast for the holy month of Ramadan More than 300 people have been killed so far in July, according to the violence monitoring group Iraq Body Count.
    The bloodshed has stoked fears that Iraq is sliding back into all-out conflict, though it has yet to match the sectarian carnage of 2006-07 when monthly death tolls sometimes topped 3,000.
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