At least 17 people were killed in Iraq yesterday, seven of them in a suicide car bomb attack in Baghdad, security and medical sources said on the second day of violence since the curfew in the capital was lifted.
Seven civilians were killed and 27 wounded when a suicide car bomber blew himself up near Mishin trade complex in the Riyadh area of southeast Baghdad, a medic at Baghdad's Ibn Nafis hospital said.
A security source said that first a mortar fell on the complex, and when people gathered near the site a car bomber then approached and detonated his vehicle.
In another attack a bomb exploded in the Suq Haraj market in central Baghdad's Bab al-Sharqi area, killing three and wounding 19, al-Kindi hospital said.
Another car bomb in the Faraj market at Baghdad's northeastern Qahira neighborhood killed three more and wounded 12.
The nearby College of Fine Arts was also targeted with a car bomb that killed two civilians and wounded three others.
Beset by rampant sectarian violence, Iraq's parliament on Wednesday voted to extend the country's state of emergency for 30 more days, as at least 66 more Iraqis were killed or found dead.
Wednesday's deaths included those of eight soccer players and fans cut down by a pair of mortar rounds that slammed onto a field in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood.
Lawmakers at a closed-door meeting attended by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki voted unanimously to extend the emergency measures, legislator Ammar Touama and Kamal al-Saidi said.
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