A truck bomb has exploded near a Shia mosque in a busy commercial district in Baghdad, killing at least 78 people and wounding dozens. At least 78 people were killed and over 200 others wounded when a parked truck near Al-Kholani mosque exploded, the sources said. The explosion, the deadliest in Iraq since mid-April, spared the green dome of Al-Kholani mosque in the Sinak area but destroyed its main prayer hall. The thunderous explosion, which occurred just before 2 pm on Tuesday sent white dust and a pall of billowing black smoke into the sky over concrete buildings in Sinak district of the capital, Baghdad, Iraqi police said.
The incident came two days after the expiration of a curfew imposed following last week's bombing of a revered Shia shrine mosque in Samarra. It is not the first time the Sinak area has been hit. A suicide car bomber killed at least 21 people there on May 28.