WORLD> Middle East
|
WORLD> Middle East
|
|
Iraqi police: bombs kill 19 near Shiite mosques
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-10-02 21:42 The police officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press. A witness to the Zafaraniyah attack said he saw a white car speed toward the mosque and then heard a huge explosion that sparked a fire and heavy smoke. Ammar Hashim, 25, who runs a car parts shop nearby, rushed to the site and saw "a damaged and burned Humvee with dead and burned bodies and many injured people crying out in pain." "Pools of blood and the smell of burned flesh was everywhere and I saw a man of about 70 bleeding and lying on the ground from injuries," said Hashim, whose brother was also injured by broken glass in his shop. Hashim said civilian cars began to rush people to a nearby hospital before ambulances arrived. Footage from Associated Press Television News showed slippers and shoes scattered on the bloodstained ground. The blasts blew out windows nearby and slightly damaged some shops. The faithful at both mosques are followers of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's top Shiite cleric. Sunnis and other Shiite groups celebrated the Eid al-Fitr holiday earlier in the week. Separately Thursday, a bomb in western Baghdad wounded four American soldiers, US military spokesman Lt. Col. Steven Stover said. He gave no other details, but Baghdad police said the attacker was a suicide bomber in a car who detonated his explosives on a US convoy. Two Iraqi civilians were also wounded, a police official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. |
