Tue, April 06, 2010
BAGHDAD – Police and medical officials say a car bomb has exploded in a market in southwest Baghdad, killing at least six people.
Hours earlier, at least five massive bombs hit apartment buildings across the capital, killing at least 39 people and wounding more than 130. It was the latest sign Iraq's fragile security could dissolve in the chaos of the unresolved election.
Police and health officials said the latest explosion happened around 1 p.m. in a Baghdad market. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as there were not authorized to release information.
At least five massive bombs hit apartment buildings across Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least 39 people and wounding more than 130 in the latest sign Iraq's fragile security could dissolve in the chaos of the unresolved election.
It was the fourth attack with multiple casualties across Iraq in five days, a spate of violence that has claimed more than 100 lives since Friday. The attacks have spiked as political leaders scramble to secure enough support to form a government after the March 7 parliamentary elections failed to produce a clear winner.
Ayad Allawi, whose bloc came out ahead in the vote by two seats over Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's, said the political deadlock caused the recent wave of violence.
"This is blamed on the power vacuum, of course," Allawi told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday, saying "extreme forces" are trying to exploit the political uncertainty.
Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, an Iraqi military spokesman for Baghdad's operations command center, said the attackers detonated blasts using homemade bombs and, in one case, a car packed with explosives. He said there were at least seven blasts; the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said there were five.
(Agencies)
