Sat, Apr 30, 2005 page7

• Series of car bombings kills dozens in Baghdad

  CONTINUING VIOLENCE Only one day after the Iraqi parliament chose a new government, insurgents struck across the country, but focused attacks on the capital

  • AFP
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  At least 23 people were killed and some 90 others wounded in a string of nine car bomb attacks targeting security forces in and around Baghdad early Friday, an interior ministry official said.

  Deadly explosions also struck the Kurdish northern city of Arbil and the southern Shiite city of Basra.

  The attacks came a day after parliament voted in the new government of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, with several seats left vacant.

  

  In this picture released by the US Marine Corps Wednesday, a dust storm is seen bellowing across the western desert, near al-Asad, Iraq, on Tuesday. The storm was spawned near the border of Syria and Jordan. Weather forecasters here described the dust storm as a downburst. The ensuing storm increased in energy as the winds pushed over the desert, which created a wall of sand. Weather officials said that a downburst this strong is extremely rare for this region of Iraq. The storm passed over in about 45 minutes, leaving a heavy sheet of dust in its wake.

  PHOTO: AP

  Thirteen people died, including seven soldiers and two policemen, and 50 were wounded, including 13 soldiers and two policemen, in four apparently coordinated car bomb attacks in two districts of the capital at about 8am, the official said.

  At least some of the cars were believed to have been driven by suicide drivers.

  A photographer saw the remains of one hand, believed to belong to a bomber, chained to the steering wheel of a burned out car.

  Nine died, including four policeman and three interior ministry commandos, and 35, mostly civilians, were wounded when three more car bombs exploded in Madain, a town some 30km south of the capital that was swept only 10 days ago by the Iraqi army in search of insurgents.

  An Iraqi soldier was killed and three injured by an eighth car bomb, which exploded next to an army convoy in an eastern district of the capital at around 10:30am, security officials said.

  The latest surge of attacks started around 7:30am when a bomb exploded just after a US convoy had driven by in the southern Dura district. There were no reported casualties.

  A 10-year-old girl was wounded shortly afterwards when a mortar shell hit her home in the southern Dura district.

  Dozens of explosions then rocked the city around 8am, as car bombs targetted Iraqi police and army in the northern district of Adhamiyah and insurgents fired mortar shells into the area adding to the chaos.

  Two more cars blew up near police targets in the eastern district of Saligh leaving scenes of widespread destruction.

  In Madain at around the same time, a car bomb ploughed into a police vehicle at the entrance to the town. A second car bomb detonated outside a communications center and a third blew up near the local hospital.

  Also Friday, a bomb disposal expert was killed and a civilian injured by an explosion in the Kurdish city of Arbil, local police chief Fahrad Karim said.

  And in Basra, one border guard was killed and two injured by a bomb, hospital sources said.

  The US military, meanwhile, said an American soldier was killed and five others were wounded in a bomb explosion early Thursday near former president Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq.
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