Three car bombs struck the heart of Baghdad yesterday, killing four people, in the fourth wave of coordinated attacks in as many months, days after top ministers were quizzed in parliament over security.
Fourteen people were wounded in the blasts, which came in quick succession during the height of the morning rush hour, an interior ministry official said.
The first bomb exploded in a car park opposite the Iranian embassy around 7:30am, the second minutes later near the foreign ministry and the third soon after in a car park by the ministry for emigrants and displaced persons.
“Dear God, how on earth do the police and soldiers let these booby-trapped vehicles through,” said Um Ali, whose son Maki, 28, works in the car park hit by the third bomb and who was seriously wounded in the blast.
“A man left his car this morning and headed off almost at a run. When my son approached the vehicle, it blew up,” she said, crumpled on the pavement.
Baraa al-Saraj, 26, who works inside the nearby Green Zone, the highly protected compound which houses the US and British embassies as well as government offices, said the bomb was clearly targeted at civil servants.
“Generally, it’s staff of the defense and emigres ministries who park here,” he said.
Police sappers were able to defuse a fourth booby-trapped vehicle left near a checkpoint on a road leading into the Green Zone.
“We found three anti-tank mines and four makeshift bombs inside concealed under the seats and in the doors,” a police major general at the scene, declining to give his name.
“It’s a red van of 2009 vintage registered in Baghdad in the name of one Ali Sahib,” the police officer said without elaborating on whether the vehicle had been reported stolen.
It was the fourth time since August that bombers had succeeded in attacking official buildings in the Iraqi capital despite the security measures in place.
On Aug. 19 a double suicide attack against the foreign and finance ministries killed 106 people and wounded some 600.
On Oct. 25 it was the turn of the justice ministry and a provincial office, with the blasts killing 153 people and wounding more than 500.
And on Dec. 8 five attacks in Baghdad killed 127 and wounded 448.
Yesterday’s blasts came just days after MPs grilled government ministers and other top security officials over the repeated breaches in several days of hearings.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki himself appeared before parliament last week. MPs criticized the lack of coordination between different ministries but the prime minister blamed MPs for not approving more funds.
The commander of US forces in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, predicted a rise in the number of attacks ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for March 7.
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
RSS