Source: Reuters
BASRA, Iraq, Aug 7 (Reuters) - At least 16 people were killed when a power generator exploded in a market in the centre of Iraqi oil hub Basra on Saturday, a hospital source said.
Around 110 people were admitted to hospitals, the source said.
"We're investigating the cause. We don't know whether it was a terrorist attack or something else," said Ali al-Maliki, the head of the security committee in the Basra council.
A Reuters correspondent said he heard at least two explosions. (Reporting by Aref Mohammed; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Charles Dick)
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By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer Sameer N. Yacoub, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 45 mins ago
BAGHDAD – Explosions killed at least 20 people and wounded as many as 100 Saturday night at a downtown market in Iraq's second-largest city, a senior official said, coming at the end of a violent day that also saw the slaying of seven policemen around the country.
It was the latest spate of attacks to come as all but 50,000 U.S. military troops head home by the end of the month.
Deputy provincial council chairman Sheik Ahmed al-Sulayti said he was alerted by police late Saturday about the rising death toll in Basra, located 340 miles (550 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad.
Al-Sulayti said at least 20 were killed by the blasts that came within minutes of each other at central Basra's al-Ashaar market. He said an estimated 100 were injured.
But as is common in the immediate chaos after Iraq explosions, the death toll varied among officials. A senior commander in Basra's security operations center said 43 people were killed and more than 200 wounded. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
Another report had as many as 60 people dead.
Officials also differed over the cause of the blasts.
Two police officials said a roadside bomb and a car packed with explosives caused the explosions. Both spoke on condition of anonymity. But Basra Police Chief Adil Daham said the explosions were caused by a malfunctioning power generator.
Television footage showed bloodied bodies being loaded into ambulances amid hysterical bystanders, some of whom blamed Iraq's stalled government for the bloodshed.
"Why do they not agree, while the victims are falling down?" shouted one unidentified man. "The politicians are after posts and chairs. Reach an agreement, you traitors."
Five months after parliamentary elections that failed to produce a clear winner, Iraq's leaders have yet to form a new government — sparking angst(A feeling of anxiety or apprehension often accompanied by depression) and anger across the country. In Basra, where power outages have stymied air conditioning units in the searing summer temperatures, citizens have held demonstrations to blame politicians for the lack of public services.
In the most dramatic of the attacks Saturday on Iraqi security troops, gunmen killed five policemen in an overnight shootout that lasted until dawn at a suspected bomb workshop in western Baghdad, security officials said.
Tipped off by a carjacking, police trailed the suspects to a house in the mostly Sunni neighborhood of Saidiya, where they came under fire from an unknown number of gunmen.
The shooting lasted until daybreak, when the gunmen slipped away through a rear entrance, according to two Baghdad police officers and an Interior Ministry official. Two of the attackers were nabbed later Saturday while hiding in an orchard in a suburb north of Baghdad, the officials said.
When police searched the house at the scene of the shootout, they found one gunman dead with a pistol at his side.
Seven policemen and six residents, including two women and a 14-year boy, were also wounded in the shootout, the officials said. An emergency room worker at Yarmouk Hospital confirmed the casualties.
Also inside the house, police said they found a cache of bombs, chemicals and other devices to make explosives.
A minibus packed with explosives was also found in the garage, officials said, adding that there was a trail of fresh blood in the house from at least one of the gunmen.
Violence has dipped dramatically in Iraq, but shootouts and bombings are still common.
According to police and health officials across Iraq, other attacks Saturday included:
_A policeman was shot dead at a checkpoint and two others were wounded outside the city of Fallujah, 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Baghdad.
_Bombs were planted outside the homes of three policemen and a member of the government-allied Awakening Council in Karma, near Fallujah. Some 15 people were wounded, but there were no fatalities.
_A suicide bomber killed one policeman and wounded three others during a security foot patrol in the northern city of Mosul. Two bystanders also were injured.
_A bomb attached to a car in eastern Diyala province killed two people and wounded four, said police spokesman Maj. Ghalib al-Karkhi.
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Associated Press Writers Saad Abdul-Kadir and Lara Jakes contributed to this report.
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Car bombs hit Iraqi cities of Ramadi, Falluja
08 Aug 2010 10:04:35 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Cars bombs hit Ramadi, Falluja west of Baghdad
* Death toll stands at 43, with 185 wounded in Basra blasts
BAGHDAD, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Car bombs exploded in the cities of Ramadi and Falluja west of the Iraqi capital on Sunday, killing at least eight people and wounding dozens of others, police sources said.
The blasts followed three explosions at a busy market in the centre of Iraq's southern oil hub Basra late on Saturday that killed at least 43 and wounded 185, officials said.
Oil-rich Iraq has remained in a political limbo since an inconclusive March 7 election while Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish political factions try to sort out a coalition government.
Politicians and security officials say insurgents appear to be trying to take advantage of the power vacuum.
The bomb in Ramadi exploded near a restaurant in a busy area on the city's main street, killing at least seven people and wounding another 21, a police source said.
Two other car bombs blew up in Falluja, about 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad.
Police said one was left behind by gunmen who robbed a currency exchange merchant of $85,000 at his home. It killed one person and wounded four others, a hospital source said.
The other exploded near a police patrol. A police source said the blast killed two people and wounded 11 others while a hospital source said 10 people were wounded.
In Basra, families tried to identify scores of charred bodies in the morgue of one of Iraq's biggest cities after firefighters spent until late on Saturday extinguishing fierce flames.
A Reuters witness said shops stretching 300 metres (yards) either side of the busy al-Ashaar market were burned out.
"The death toll of the three explosions that hit the market yesterday (Saturday) reached to 43 people killed and 185 wounded," Riyadh Abdulameer, head of Basra's health department, told Reuters, adding this was not the final count.
"There were three terrorist explosions. One of them was a car bomb," said Ali al-Maliki, the head of the security committee in the Basra council.
A security source said one of the explosions was a bomb put under a big generator supplying electricity to many shops in the market.
"Dead bodies were removed by shovels and cranes." said Ali Abdulameer who was waiting at the morgue, searching for the body of his nephew who was killed.
"Dead bodies can't be recognised. Families are quarrelling. Each one says this corpse belongs to me. So far I couldn't find the corpse of my nephew," he added.
Overall violence in Iraq has ebbed since the peak of sectarian warfare in 2006/07 but bombings and suicide attacks occur regularly across the OPEC producer. Iraq has the world's third-largest reserves and many of the oilfields are located around Basra.
Nearly 400 civilians were killed in bombings and other attacks in July, almost double the June toll, Iraqi authorities say.
Tens of thousands of people were killed during the height of Iraq's sectarian slaughter in 2006-07.
(Reporting by Aref Mohammed in Basra, Muhanad Mohammed and Waleed Ibrahim in Baghdad; Editing by Ulf Laessing and Michael Roddy)
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