At least 65 people were killed and 85 wounded when suicide bombers blew themselves up yesterday amid worshippers at two Shiite mosques in Khanaqin, northeast of Baghdad, an Iraqi interior ministry source said.
"It is possible that the death toll will increase," said Kariran Ahmed Medid, the head of the main Khanaqin hospital.
The hospital director spoke less than three hours after two suicide bombers wearing explosive belts walked into the Greater and the Smaller Khanaqin mosques during prayers and blew themselves up.
PHOTO: EPA
Authorities immediately imposed a curfew in the majority Shiite Kurdish town near the Iranian border, some 170km from Baghdad
A member of the local council said the death toll could exceed 100.
Another blast was reported near a bank in the town, police said.
Ibrahim Ahmed Bajalan, a member of the Diyala Provincial Council, said the destruction was so bad that many bodies were trapped in the rubble of the mosques and couldn't be easily extracted.
"I think there are more than 100 people dead," he told reporters.
The attacks in Khanaqin, a mixed Shiite and Kurdish town, seemed certain to fuel sectarian tensions ahead of a Dec. 15 election that Washington hopes will pave the way for peace and democracy two and a half year after the US-led invasion.
The Shiite- and Kurdish-led government and its US backers are fighting a mainly Sunni Arab insurgency that has frequently targeted civilians in crowded places like mosques and markets.
Police said the bombers entered the small mosques in Khanaqin with explosive belts strapped to their waists and detonated themselves when the buildings were at their busiest -- during prayers on the Muslim holy day.
In Baghdad earlier yesterday, two suicide truck bombs targeted a prominent hotel but failed to pierce the perimeter and destroyed an apartment block instead, killing at least six people, including two children, police said.
The blast was also in the area of an Interior Ministry prison bunker at the center of a detainee abuse scandal that has deepened sectarian tensions, but the US military and security experts said the al-Hamarra Hotel was the primary target.
Police said at least six people died and 40 were wounded in the near simultaneous blasts. There were no reports of foreign casualties. Witnesses at the hotel said some victims' body parts were found in the swimming pool and in the street outside.
Security camera footage showed a white van driving up to blast walls at the perimeter of the hotel complex and exploding. About 20 seconds later the second explosion blew out the camera.
The nearby apartment building was reduced to rubble, about 20 cars were destroyed and dozens of firefighters and soldiers were searching for residents trapped beneath wreckage.
Distraught women in black veils slapped their heads as they surveyed the destruction. A man embraced a weeping woman.
US Colonel Ed Cardon told reporters at the scene that two vehicles drove at blast walls protecting the al-Hamarra.
The plan appeared to be for the first to open a path for the second to breach the outer defenses and cause more damage, he said.
A foreign security consultant said it looked like a clear attempt to get inside the hotel compound.
It was the second major attack on high-profile hotels in Baghdad in a month. The Sheraton and Palestine hotels were hit late last month.
About three hours later, US troops blew up a suspected car bomb in the same area.
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
‘NO AMNESTY’: Tens of thousands of people joined the rally against a bill that would slash the former president’s prison term; President Lula has said he would veto the bill Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup. Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife. On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is
FALLEN: The nine soldiers who were killed while carrying out combat and engineering tasks in Russia were given the title of Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. In a speech carried by KCNA, Kim praised officers and soldiers of the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) for “heroic” conduct and “mass heroism” in fulfilling orders issued by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a 120-day overseas deployment. Video footage released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft, Kim hugging a soldier seated in a wheelchair, and soldiers and officials
Cozy knits, sparkly bobbles and Santa hats were all the canine rage on Sunday, as hundreds of sausage dogs and their owners converged on central London for an annual parade and get-together. The dachshunds’ gathering in London’s Hyde Park came after a previous “Sausage Walk” planned for Halloween had to be postponed, because it had become so popular organizers needed to apply for an events licence. “It was going to be too much fun so they canceled it,” laughed Nicky Bailey, the owner of three sausage dogs: Una and her two 19-week-old puppies Ember and Finnegan, wearing matching red coats and silver
RSS