Bombs in Shi'ite, Kurdish districts kill 35 in Iraq

Military helicopters circling Baghdad after blasts in Sadr City, Shaab neighborhoods. Streets packed with Iraqis out at start of weekend. - @janearraf Car bomb in Iraqi city of Kirkuk kills 15, per health official - @AlArabiya_Eng Car bomb in Iraqi city of Kirkuk kills 15: health official People gather at the site of a car bomb attack in Baghdad's Shaab neighbourhood, Nov. 25, 2014. Bombings are frequent in the Iraqi capital, but mostly strike neighborhoods some distance from the central district. (File Photo: Reuters) Text size A A A By Staff Writer, Al Arabiya News Thursday, 4 December 2014 A car bomb in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk killed 15 on Thursday, a health official was quoted by AFP as saying. The car bomb ripped through a crowded street in a mainly Kurdish neighborhood of the Iraqi city of Kirkuk. "It's a busy street with restaurants and shops, there is great destruction," a police colonel said. The explosion rocked the predominantly Kurdish northern neighborhood of Shorjah. Both he and the head of the health directorate for Kirkuk province, Sabah Mohammed Amin, said the blast killed at least 15 people and wounded 20. Earlier today, two car bombs in Baghdad's densely populated eastern district of Sadr city also killed 15 people and wounded 47 people, AFP reported police and medical sources saying, hours after a bombing on the edge of the capital's central Green Zone killed two others. The car bombs went off within 20 minutes of each other on Thursday evening, the sources said. A total of 51 people were also wounded. The Green Zone district houses most government buildings. The bomb struck 200 meters from the edge of zone, sources said. In response, security forces closed two nearby bridges that span the Tigris River, linking eastern and western Baghdad. Bombings are frequent in the Iraqi capital, but mostly strike neighborhoods some distance from the central district which houses the Iraqi parliament and the U.S. Embassy and is a base for many Iraqi politicians. Sunni militants from Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which controls much of the north and west of Iraq, regularly target Shi'ite neighborhoods of Baghdad with car bombs. [With AFP and Reuters] Last Update: Thursday, 4 December 2014 KSA 21:00 - GMT 18:00 ====================== Bombs in Shi'ite, Kurdish districts kill 35 in Iraq Thu, Dec 04 13:48 PM EST BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Bombs in the Iraqi capital Baghdad and the northern city of Kirkuk killed 35 people on Thursday, mostly in Shi'ite Muslim and Kurdish neighborhoods, police and medical sources said. The five separate attacks come as Shi'ite militia and Kurdish peshmerga fighters battle Sunni militants from the Islamic State who have taken over large parts of north and west Iraq. Islamic State frequently sends bombers into Shi'ite districts of the Iraqi capital, but attacks in the Kurdish controlled Kirkuk to the north have been less frequent. The sources said a bomb in Kirkuk killed 15 people and wounded 20 others in the Shurja area of the city. The blast was believed to have been either a car bomb or a suicide bomber. In Baghdad, the deadliest explosions were two car bombs in the densely populated eastern district of Sadr City, which killed 15 people and wounded 51 others, police and medics said. A roadside bomb near a small restaurant in the northern Shi'ite neighborhood of Shaab killed three people and wounded nine, police said. Earlier a bomb killed two people near the Green Zone district which houses most government buildings, security and medical sources said. The bomb struck 200 meters from the edge of the zone, they said. In response, security forces closed two nearby bridges that span the Tigris River, linking eastern and western Baghdad. Bombings are frequent in the Iraqi capital but mostly strike neighborhoods some distance from the central district, which houses the Iraqi parliament and the U.S. Embassy and is a base for many Iraqi politicians. (Reporting by Kareem Raheem and Rahim Salman; Writing by Dominic Evans, Editing by Angus MacSwan) ==========