Car bomb kills 80 in Baghdad
2005-09-14 08:01
Baghdad - A car bomb went off on Wednesday in a Shi'ite district of Baghdad killing at least 80 people and wounding 162 in one of the most deadly single attacks to date in Iraq, a security official said.
Another 17 civilians were executed by armed men at dawn in another incident in a town north of Baghdad, the official added.
In the capital, a car was driven by a suicide bomber ploughed into a group of construction workers waiting on a square in the district of Kadhimiyah to be hired for daily work.
The attack, at around 07:00, occurred exactly one year to the day after another car bomb ripped through a busy market in Baghdad as Iraqis were gathering there to seek work as daily labourers.
A witness said a car drove up into the square and the driver called out that he wanted to hire daily labourers. As a crowd gathered around the car, the driver set off his bomb.
"There were dozens and dozens of people around the car when it blew up," said Satah Jihad, a 40-year-old shopkeeper.
Many of the day labourers who regularly gather on the square come from poor Shi'ite areas in the south of the country, he suggested.
Up to 50 small shops and dozens of cars were damaged in the explosion and firemen found it difficult to reach the scene of the carnage because cars were blocking nearby streets.
- AFP