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Families mourn Baghdad's dual bomb attack victims

An Iraqi municipality worker is reflected on a pool of blood as he cleans the site of a bomb attack in Baghdad's Karradah neighborhood on Thursday. At least 65 people were killed and more than 120 wounded in the double bomb attack. PHOTO: AFP

Family members yesterday mourned victims of a twin bombing in a packed Baghdad shopping district that killed at least 68 people and wounded 120, a grim reminder that Iraq's violence has slackened but not abated.

Funerals were held in the primarily Shiite, middle-class Baghdad neighborhood of Karradah, the area where the back-to-back bombings took place.

Cleaning crews swept the debris and blood off the site of the blasts in the shopping and residential district. Shop owners inspected the damage.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attack on Thursday. But the US military blamed al-Qaeda in Iraq.

"This was definitely AQI [al-Qaeda in Iraq] and we know who the cell leader is. He and his dogs are all targets," US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Steve Stover said.

Double bombings to maximize casualties has been a hallmark al-Qaeda in Iraq, which is responsible for killing thousands of people with such attacks.

As has happened in previous bombings, the tactic seeks to draw in the people with the first blast -- especially security, medical workers and other first responders -- before a second bomb detonates.

"I saw a leg and a hand falling near me as I was walking. The whole place was a mess. Wounded people were crying for help, and people started to run away."

Hassan Abdullah, clothing store owner

Iraqis were enjoying a pleasant spring evening when a roadside bomb hidden under a vendor stall detonated in Karradah.

Five minutes later, a suicide bomber wearing an explosives belt detonated, Mohammed al-Rubaie, the head of the Karradah municipality, told the state-run Al-Iraqiya TV.

Interior Ministry officials said yesterday that 68 people were killed and 120 injured after several people died from their injuries overnight. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media.

An Associated Press count from officials at five hospitals showed at least 67 dead and 119 injured.

Hassan Abdullah, who owns a clothing shop in the area, said he was walking to the site of the first blast to see what happened when the second bomb went off.

"I saw a leg and a hand falling near me as I was walking. The whole place was a mess. Wounded people were crying for help, and people started to run away," said Abdullah, 25.

"The aim of such attacks is the random killing of as many people as possible in order to terrorize Iraqi people," he said.

Many of the victims were teens or young adults, officials said.

At one funeral, family members mourned the death of a 17-year-old Christian man.

Several young men carried his wooden coffin out of his family's home and carried it down the street as family members walked behind.

"I lost my son. It breaks my heart," the man's father said.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki condemned the attack yesterday, calling it a "horrible crime."

"This crime reveals the rooted hatred of terrorists against the Iraqi people," a statement from his office said.

In a separate bombing yesterday, an extremist attacked a police station in Mosul, driving a car laden with explosives through protective barriers before detonating it outside the station's front gate, killing at least three and wounding 32, authorities said.

The US military said two Iraqi police were killed and one civilian, and that 12 officers were among the wounded.

A local police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information, put the death toll at four, all officers, and the wounded at 33.

Mosul is the focus of a joint US-Iraqi military campaign to force al-Qaeda in Iraq out of what the military describes as its last major urban stronghold.

Separately, a provincial police officer, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said twin bombings yesterday morning near the home of a police office in central Mosul killed one person and injured 14 others seriously.
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