IRAQ: Truck bombs on three important bridges near Baghdad kill 26

Record ID: 862685

  • Title: IRAQ: Truck bombs on three important bridges near Baghdad kill 26
  • Date: 13th May 2007
  • Summary: PEOPLE ON BRIDGE/ DAMAGED FENCE
  • Embargoed: 28th May 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • City:
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVAANXMDUAPMGEP8VSZ9X44BC5ZC
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: Truck bombs exploded on three important bridges near Baghdad on Friday (May 11), killing 26 people and damaging two of the spans in an apparent attempt by insurgents to paralyse road links to the Iraqi capital. The attacks defy efforts by the U.S. military to smash car bomb cells and are the latest in a series of attacks on infrastructure around Baghdad, where U.S. and Iraqi forces have deployed thousands more troops under a three-month-old security plan. Baghdad residents viewed the damage on Saturday (May 12) after bombers struck key infrastructure elements in the capital.
    Truck bombs exploded on three important bridges near Baghdad on Friday (May 11), killing 26 people and damaging two of the spans in an apparent attempt by insurgents to paralyse road links to the Iraqi capital.
    Police said suicide truck bombers struck police checkpoints on two bridges in a Shi'ite area south of Baghdad, killing 22 people and badly damaging one of the bridges. They said 60 people were wounded.
    "We were sitting there when suddenly a car bomb blew up on that bridge around 6 o'clock yesterday and five minutes later this car blew up here," an eyewitness said.
    An Iraqi army source said a truck bomb also hit a bridge near the town of Taji just north of Baghdad on the main highway connecting the capital with cities in the north. He said it was quickly followed by a car bomb that killed four soldiers there.
    The U.S. military said the bridge was impassable for northbound traffic.
    Politicians from both sides of the Shi'ite-Sunni sectarian divide have accused insurgents of trying to split the capital of seven million people along sectarian lines.
    A police source said eight policemen were among the dead in the attacks on the bridges south of Baghdad, but it was unclear how many casualties were caused by each blast.
    Police said the first bomber damaged the old Diyala Bridge. Minutes later, a few kilometres (miles) away, another attacker detonated a truck bomb on the new Diyala Bridge.
    The two bridges over the Diyala River, a tributary of the Tigris, are commonly used by Shi'ite pilgrims on their way to holy Shi'ite cities to the south.
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