Region | Iraq
Suicide bomber kills 32 in Baghdad
Explosives-packed car detonated near funeral procession outside a hospital
- AFP
- Published: 00:00 January 28, 2012
- Image Credit: Reuters
- Residents carry the coffin of a victim, who was killed in a bomb attack in Baghdad’s Zafraniya neighbourhood on Friday. The Arabic inscription on the coffin reads ‘God is the greatest’. More than 200 people have been killed in attacks since US forces completed their pullout on December 18.
Baghdad: A car bomb near a funeral procession outside a hospital in east Baghdad killed at least 32 people and wounded 65 yesterday, a doctor at the hospital said.
An interior ministry official confirmed the explosion in Zafraniya, which struck at 11am, but said it was caused by a suicide attacker driving an explosives-packed car.
The blast hit the funeral procession of Mohammad Al Maliki, a property agent who was killed along with his wife and son a day earlier in the west Baghdad neighbourhood of Yarmuk, the doctor and interior ministry official said. Both spoke on condition of anonymity.
The procession had collected Al Maliki's body and was transporting it for the funeral when the explosion struck.
Differing accounts
A medical official said at least four women were among the fatalities, but no further details were immediately available.
Al Maliki and his family were killed by gunmen in Yarmuk, although there have been differing accounts of the attack itself.
A medic at Yarmuk hospital said the attackers burst into a real estate agency and killed three, while an interior ministry official said four people, including two real estate agents, died when gunmen opened fire on their car.
Violence in Iraq is down from its peak in 2006 and 2007, but attacks remain common. More than 200 people have been killed in attacks since American forces completed their pullout on December 18, according to an AFP tally.
Yesterday's attack came a day after violence in Iraq killed 17 people, and is the deadliest to hit the country in nearly two weeks, amid a political crisis pitting the Shiite-led government against the main Sunni-backed bloc that has stoked sectarian tensions.
‘Worse than Saddam'
The row erupted when authorities charged Sunni Vice-President Tarek Al Hashemi with running a death squad and Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, a Shiite, called for his Sunni deputy Saleh Al Mutlaq to be sacked after the latter said the premier was "worse than Saddam Hussain".
In response, Al Hashemi and Mutlaq's Iraqiya bloc has largely boycotted the cabinet and parliament, and Al Hashemi, who denies the charges, has stayed in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, which has so far declined to hand him over.
The United Nations and the United States have urged calm and called for dialogue but oft-mooted talks among Iraq's political leaders have yet to take place.
Major attacks in Iraq over the past year
- January 18, 2011: A suicide bomber attacks Iraqi police recruits in Tikrit, killing 50 people and wounding more than 100.
- January 20: Two separate car bombs kill up to 45 pilgrims near Karbala ahead of the culmination of a major Shiite religious rite.
- January 27: A car bomb at a wake in a Shiite part of Baghdad kills more than 35 people and wounds scores of others.
- March 29: At least 53 people are killed and 98 wounded when gunmen take hostages at a provincial council headquarters in Saddam Hussain's hometown of Tikrit, precipitating a battle with security forces who sweep in to end the siege.
- August 15: A wave of attacks strike cities across Iraq, killing around 70 people and wounding more than 200 in the bloodiest day yet in 2011.
- August 28: A bomber wearing a cast on his arm blows himself up in the main hall of the Umm Al Qura mosque, an important Sunni religious site in Baghdad. At least 32 people are killed and 39 wounded.
- December 22: More than ten coordinated bombings strike Baghdad, killing at least 72 people, with around 200 wounded.
- January 5, 2012: Four bombs in mainly Shiite areas of Baghdad kill at least 73 people. The biggest attack was beside a police checkpoint west of Nassiriya in the south, where a suicide bomber targeting Shiite pilgrims killed 44 people and wounded 81.
- January 9: Two car bombs kill at least 15 people and wound 52 in the capital.
- January 14: A suicide bomber disguised as a policeman kills at least 32 people and wounds 100 more in an attack on Shiite pilgrims at a police checkpoint in Basra.
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