Baghdad bombs kill 34 while two British helicopters crash

Baghdad: Up to 34 people were killed and 100 wounded by bombs in mainly Shiite districts of Baghdad yesterday, police said, and two British military personnel died when two helicopters crashed north of the city.

Four more people were injured when the Puma transport helicopters crashed near a US air base in Taji, British officials said. The helicopters may have collided in mid-air, the US military said.

Two car bombs earlier yesterday killed 15 people and wounded 50 more in the Al Shurta Al Rabeia neighbourhood in southwest Baghdad. The first was detonated in a market, followed seconds later by another at a nearby intersection, police said.

In Karrada in central Baghdad, two roadside bombs at nightfall killed eight people and wounded 23. The second bomb went off as people were gathering around the site of the first explosion.

Also in Karrada, a car bomb aimed at a police patrol earlier killed five people and wounded another 10 in a blast that rattled windows hundreds of metres away, police said. In the Kadhimiya district, a police source said a suicide bomber wearing a belt packed with explosives killed six people and wounded 11 in a small bus.

US occupation: Al Sadr bloc to quit government today

The political movement of Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr said yesterday it would withdraw from the government today to press its demand for a timetable for a US troop withdrawal.

Officials from the movement, which holds six ministries and a quarter of parliamentary seats in Premier Nouri Al Maliki's Shiite Alliance, said the announcement would be made today.

The move is unlikely to bring down the government, but it could create tensions in Al Maliki's fractious government.