A suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt in a bus as it was about to depart yesterday for a Shiite city in the south, killing up to 30 people and wounding nearly 40, police and hospital officials said.
Most of the dead were in the bus, which was gutted by flames, and the rest were gathered around a food stall nearby, police said at the scene. Kindi hospital said at least 37 were injured.
Police said the attacker waited until the bus was pulling away slowly from the station, then jumped on board to avoid security checks. Police said the death toll was especially high because the blast triggered secondary explosions in gas cylinders stored at the food stall.
PHOTO: AP
The blast occurred a week before national elections, and officials had warned of a surge in violence ahead of the balloting. Several other explosions rumbled through the heart of the capital yesterday morning.
Witnesses told police that the attacker left a car and climbed onto the bus and blew himself up as the bus was about to leave for Nasiriyah, 320km southeast of Baghdad, police Lieutenant Ali Mitaab said.
Fire swept through the bus following the blast, trapping passengers. Their charred corpses remained in their seats, their faces starring out through the shattered windows. Police climbed over the top of the vehicle inspecting what remained of luggage.
"As the bus was going outside the station, a man carrying a bag tried to get into the bus, but the conductor was suspicious about him," police Lieutenant Wisam Hakim said. "He tried to stop him but the man insisted. He sat in the middle of the bus and then the explosion took place."
The attack occurred at the major bus station for vehicles headed to the mostly Shiite areas of the south.
Last August the station was the scene of a horrific triple car bombing which killed at least 43 people and wounded 89. The latest attack occurred two days after two suicide bombers struck at the city's police academy, killing 43 police and cadets.
British appeal
Meanwhile, Britain issued a fresh appeal yesterday for the kidnappers of four foreign Christian peace campaigners in Iraq, including a British citizen, to come forward and make contact.
"As I have said before, if the kidnappers want to get in touch with us, we want to hear what they have to say. We have people in Iraq and the region and they are ready to hear from the kidnappers," Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said.
Straw made the appeal after the kidnappers of Briton Norman Kember, 74, Canadians James Loney, 41 and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, and US national Tom Fox, 54, extended by 48 hours to tomorrow their deadline to kill them.
"Norman Kember and his colleagues are campaigners for peace, dedicated to help others. We ask for their release," said Straw, who issued an initial appeal on Wednesday for the kidnappers to make contact.
"We remain in close touch with Mrs Kember and it is hard to imagine the terrible distress that Mr Kember's family are suffering throughout this ordeal. Our thoughts and our prayers are with them," he said.
"The message of this latest statement is not clear. If the kidnappers want to get in touch, we want to hear what they have to say," he said.
Al-Jazeera last Friday showed a video of the four hostages and said it had received a statement from the kidnappers threatening to kill them unless all detainees in Iraqi and coalition prisons were released by yesterday.
It gave those it called "the people concerned with abductees affairs" until yesterday to meet its demands or said it would kill the four.
The statement was accompanied by a video showing the two Canadian hostages being offered food.
They and the British hostage were also shown calling for an end to the US and British military presence in Iraq.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
RSS