At least 23 people were killed and some 90 others wounded in a string of nine car bomb attacks targeting security forces in and around Baghdad early Friday, an interior ministry official said.
Deadly explosions also struck the Kurdish northern city of Arbil and the southern Shiite city of Basra.
The attacks came a day after parliament voted in the new government of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, with several seats left vacant.
PHOTO: AP
Thirteen people died, including seven soldiers and two policemen, and 50 were wounded, including 13 soldiers and two policemen, in four apparently coordinated car bomb attacks in two districts of the capital at about 8am, the official said.
At least some of the cars were believed to have been driven by suicide drivers.
A photographer saw the remains of one hand, believed to belong to a bomber, chained to the steering wheel of a burned out car.
Nine died, including four policeman and three interior ministry commandos, and 35, mostly civilians, were wounded when three more car bombs exploded in Madain, a town some 30km south of the capital that was swept only 10 days ago by the Iraqi army in search of insurgents.
An Iraqi soldier was killed and three injured by an eighth car bomb, which exploded next to an army convoy in an eastern district of the capital at around 10:30am, security officials said.
The latest surge of attacks started around 7:30am when a bomb exploded just after a US convoy had driven by in the southern Dura district. There were no reported casualties.
A 10-year-old girl was wounded shortly afterwards when a mortar shell hit her home in the southern Dura district.
Dozens of explosions then rocked the city around 8am, as car bombs targetted Iraqi police and army in the northern district of Adhamiyah and insurgents fired mortar shells into the area adding to the chaos.
Two more cars blew up near police targets in the eastern district of Saligh leaving scenes of widespread destruction.
In Madain at around the same time, a car bomb ploughed into a police vehicle at the entrance to the town. A second car bomb detonated outside a communications center and a third blew up near the local hospital.
Also Friday, a bomb disposal expert was killed and a civilian injured by an explosion in the Kurdish city of Arbil, local police chief Fahrad Karim said.
And in Basra, one border guard was killed and two injured by a bomb, hospital sources said.
The US military, meanwhile, said an American soldier was killed and five others were wounded in a bomb explosion early Thursday near former president Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia