Baghdad: car bomb kills more than 80 people in Shi'ite quarter
Victims were looking for work. The suicide bomber drew them to his minibus with false promises of employment.
Baghdad (AsiaNews/Agencies) More than 80 people have been killed in the latest suicide bomb attack in Baghdad. A car driven by a suicide bomber blew up in a square in the Shi'ite quarter of Kadhimiya where dozens of workers had gathered to wait a day's work, as they did every morning. According to the police and authorities, the explosion killed at least 82 people and injured 163.
"We gathered and suddenly a car blew up and turned the area into fire and dust and darkness," said Hadi, one of the eye witnessed who survived the attack.
According to sources of the Home Affairs Ministry, the suicide bomber lured people around his minibus by promising them work and then he blew himself up. Other sources said the bomb was made with more than 220kg of explosives.
The street was littered with bodies alongside burned-out cars, witnesses said. Some used wooden carts to carry away the dead.
Iraqi Government officials have accused Sunni Arab militants of attacking majority Shiites on many occasions in a bid to spark a civil war. The Shi'ites came into power in January elections.
The attack followed carnage in the town of Taji, just north of the capital, where both Sunnites and Shi'ites live. Here, gunmen went from house to house in a dawn raid, dragged 17 men out, gathered them in the square and shot them.
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