A car bomb ripped through a crowded commercial district in a mainly Shiite town, killing at least 32 people, Iraqi officials said — the latest attack north of Baghdad where violence has been slower to decline than elsewhere in the country.
The blast on Friday, which wounded 43 people, was apparently targeting a police station in the town of Dujail, but instead badly damaged a nearby medical clinic, police said.
Concrete barriers largely protected the police station, the officials said.
The blast took place about 46m from the police station in an area packed with shoppers preparing for Iftar, the daily meal at which Muslims break their sunrise-to-sunset fast during the holy month of Ramadan.
Kamil al-Khazraji, the 33-year-old owner of a clothing store, said he was preparing to close when he heard the explosion.
“The ground under me was shaking. I went outside the shop only to see fire and dust all over the place,” al-Khazraji said. “The area looked like a battlefield, with wounded people crying for help and scattered dead bodies.”
Two police officers and a hospital official gave the casualty toll on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to release the information.
One of the officers said four policemen were among the 32 dead.
The US military confirmed a car bomb exploded about 6:20pm in Dujail, but said 23 Iraqis were killed and 40 others were wounded. Conflicting tolls from explosions in Iraq are common as authorities struggle to recover victims and contain the damage in the aftermath.
The death toll reported by Iraqi officials makes Friday’s blast the deadliest since July 28, when 32 people were killed by three female suicide bombers, who struck Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad.
Dujail, 80km north of Baghdad, was the site of a 1982 assassination attempt against former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. The ousted leader was hanged in December 2006 after being convicted of ordering the killings of more than 140 Shiites from Dujail in retaliation for the attempt on his life.
More recently, Dujail has escaped major attacks and rigorous security measures common elsewhere in Iraq.
Resident Hussein al-Dujaili, 24, said he and the family were preparing food at home when they heard a big explosion.
“The smoke filled my house and the shrapnel broke some of the house’s windows. I went outside the house and saw two dead bodies at the gate after they had been thrown by the explosion,” al-Dujaili said. “Some people were in panic and others were crying.
“We are astonished by today’s explosion because we thought our town was safe,” he said.
Earlier on Friday, a suicide bomber blew himself up in front of a Shiite mosque farther north in Sinjar as worshippers left prayers at midday, killing two civilians and wounding 15, police chief Colonel Awad Kahlil said.
Sinjar is near Mosul, which is the target of an ongoing US-Iraqi operation against Sunni insurgents.
In political developments, Shiite followers of anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr rallied in Baghdad and the southern city of Kufa against plans for a US-Iraqi security agreement that will determine the status of the US military in Iraq after the UN mandate expires at the end of the year.
Sheik Abdul Hadi al-Mohammadawi, an al-Sadr aide, told worshippers during prayers in Sadr City that it was a “suspicious agreement” that would bring “humiliation and degradation to the Iraqi people.”
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was