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Baghdad bombing toll at 47
14/09/2004 14:13 - (SA)
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| A boy cries as he waits to take possession of the body of his brother, killed in the explosion, for burial on Tuesday. (Hadi Mizban, AP) |
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Baghdad - Forty-seven people died in a massive car bombing outside Baghdad's main police headquarters on Tuesday, leaving a trail of mayhem in the most lethal attack on Iraq's fledging security services in two months.
Another 13 people, all but one of them a policemen, were killed in a roadside shooting north of the capital, amid a sharp resurgence of violence across the country.
The devastating Baghdad explosion occurred in a bustling district at the end of Haifa Street, where witnesses said dozens of young men were queueing up at the police station, which doubles as a recruitment centre.
Although attacks on police are common in insurgency-wracked Iraq, the latest bombing came two days after bitter clashes between US troops and insurgents in Haifa Street area, considered a bastion of Saddam Hussein loyalists.
Two other Iraqis were seriously wounded in a near simultaneous bomb explosion not far from the planning ministry, said the health ministry.
Police sergeant Haider Hamid said the car exploded outside the main entrance of the al-Karkh police centre, but the building escaped with only minor damage.
"More than 200 people were queuing outside the main gate. I came with six friends and now I'm alone.
"They've gone, all of them," said aspiring police recruit Nabeel Mohammed, slightly wounded in the blast.
In Baquba, north of Baghdad, 12 Iraqi policemen and one person were killed in gun attack in the city, where 70 people perished in a suicide bombing outside a police station on July 28, police said.
- SAPA
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