At least 58 people were killed in a spate of attacks across Iraq on Sunday, including 31 Shi’ite pilgrims who died in a car bombing as they returned from a religious festival, security officials said.
The car bomb exploded as pilgrims arrived in several vehicles at Baghdad’s downtown Karrada district from Karbala in central Iraq, which on Saturday played host to several million Shi’ites for the festival of Arbaeen.
The attack also wounded 25 pilgrims, five of whom were in critical condition, according to a medic at Baghdad’s Ibn Nafis hospital.
A security official said 10 commuters were killed and eight wounded in a separate incident when a suicide bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body on board a minibus as it passed Baghdad’s renowned Mustansiriyah University, a frequent target of Sunni extremists.
Five labourers were killed when a bomb ripped through their bus near Baladruz, 100km north-east of Baghdad in the ethnically volatile Diyala province, police lieutenant Mohammed Salim said.
Ten other labourers were wounded, he added.
In another attack, a bomb blast at the office of Iraq’s largest Sunni political party in the northern restive city of Mosul killed four people, police and party officials said.
Three of those killed at the office of the Iraqi Islamic Party were guards while a fourth guard was wounded, police and party officials said.
A party official in Mosul, Mohammed Shakir al-Ghanam, confirmed the blast and said one of those killed could be a suicide bomber.
A car bomb attack targeting a police checkpoint in Baghdad’s south-east Karrada district killed two civilians and wounded six others, police said.
Two women were killed when their car was hit by a roadside bomb in Mahmudiyah, south of Baghdad, police said.
Another woman and an infant were wounded.
Two civilians were killed when unknown gunmen shot them south of Baghdad in the district of Mashru, police said.
In another incident, two police officers were killed and seven others were wounded as a roadside bomb they were defusing in the Zulf-al-Sakhar district between Baghdad and the central city of Hilla exploded.
The United States military, meanwhile, announced the arrest of 15 militants in a series of raids that targeted al-Qaeda networks in Iraq. — AFP