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At Least
35 People Killed In Baghdad Car Bomb
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Iraqis sort through the wreckage and carry away the dead from the scene of an explosion in central Baghdad
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BAGHDAD
(IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - At least 35 people were killed
and 120 wounded when a powerful car bomb exploded early Thursday, June
17, at the gates of a recruitment centre for the new Iraqi army in
Baghdad.
"It
was a car bomb. We don't know the type of car, we just have an engine
and a gear box," said Saad Mafaa, a police officer who witnessed
the attack, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"It
was loaded with cannon shells and it exploded at the gates of the
recruitment centre."
Four
unexploded artillery shells still lay in the street, said an AFP
correspondent.
He
added that bloodied and battered bodies lay tangled in the street
outside the recruitment centre, as ambulances struggled to deal with
the chaos.
Rescue
workers heaped badly mutilated casualties into ambulances and police
trucks, while dazed Iraqi army men in uniform stood watching the
carnage.
Toll
Rising
At
the three hospitals closest to the scene of the blast, medics said the
casualty toll kept rising as more bloodied and twisted bodies were
brought in.
Abdul
Moneim Hussein, chief of the emergency department at Karama hospital,
said that the number of dead there had risen to nine from eight
previously, while the injured count rose to 127 people, including a
woman.
At
least 10 vehicles were damaged when the car, packed with explosives,
detonated, shattering windows and scattering glass across the street.
"About
100 of us were standing in front of the Iraqi army recruitment
centre," said Issam Jassem, 32, a former member of the disbanded
army.
"An
officer was in the process of reading out a list of people accepted to
take part in the new army and had told us that we had to return on
June 26 when the explosion happened," the young volunteer
recalled.
The
car bomb mirrored an attack outside the same recruitment centre in
February which claimed the lives of 47 people, most of them young
volunteers.
The
recruitment centre is close to the headquarters of the US-led
occupation authority and a military operating base, near the old
Muthanna military airfield.
The
bombing came few hours after seven foreigners, including three US
occupation soldiers, and five Iraqis were killed in separate
attacks across the war-ravaged country.
A
car
bomber blew himself up on a busy Baghdad street early
Monday, June 14, as a convoy of vehicles from the U.S.-led occupation
drove past, killing at least 12 people, including five foreigners, and
wounding up to 50 others.
It
came hard on the heels of a deadly bombing that
rocked the Iraqi capital Sunday, June 13, and killed 16
Iraqis.
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