Suicide car bomb rocks Baghdad

2005-09-15 12:05

Baghdad - At least 23 Iraqis were killed and several dozen people wounded, including two United States soldiers, in four suicide car bomb attacks in Baghdad on Thursday, Iraqi and US officials said.

The attacks followed a devastating series of suicide car bombings and shootings in Iraq on Wednesday that killed at around 150 people and wounded several hundred more.

In a first attack, 16 people were killed, most of them policemen, when a car bomber attacked an emergency response police patrol in the southern district of Dura, security officials said.

A second attack wounded two US soldiers in a Humvee in the east of the city, a US military spokesperson said.

And two more suicide bombers jointly attacked another police patrol in Dura, killing at least seven policemen and wounding at least 17, Iraqi officials said.

Wednesday's attacks were claimed by loyalists to al-Qaeda frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who declared all-out war on Iraq's Shi'ite majority in an audiotape posted on the internet.

The carnage came as Iraqi leaders announced the completion of a draft constitution to be put to a referendum in mid-October after weeks of tortuous negotiations.

- AFP