TWO truck bombs targeting a tiny sect in a village in northern Iraq and a spate of bloody bombings in Baghdad killed at least 47 people today and wounded more than 250, officials said.In the deadliest single attack, two booby-trapped lorries exploded before dawn in the village of Khaznah, east of the restive northern Iraqi city of Mosul, leaving 28 people dead and 155 wounded. The massive blasts levelled 35 houses and gouged deep craters into the ground of the prosperous village of 3000, home to members of the small Shabak community, a sect of Kurdish origin.
Falah Ridha, a 23-year-old nurse wounded in the attack, said he was the only survivor of 12 people in his family home.
"Eleven people in my family were killed when their house collapsed. All of them woke up after the first bomb, but the second bomb was very close to my house, it was like an earthquake,'' he said. "No one else escaped, just me.''
Mohammed Kadhem said: "I was sleeping on the roof and I woke up as if there was an earthquake. After that I saw a plume of smoke and dust spreading everywhere. A minute later another bomb went off, knocking me off the roof onto the ground. I was struck unconscious by shrapnel and stones,'' he said.
In Baghdad, two bombs went off as day labourers were gathering in the early morning looking for jobs, police and the interior ministry said. The first bomb, hidden inside a bag of cement, exploded at Hay al-Amel in the west of the capital, killing seven people and injuring 46.
The second attack, a car bomb in Shurta Arbaa in the north of the city, killed nine people and wounded 36 others.
A third bombing at a market in the southern suburb of Saidiyah killed three people and wounded 14.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki at a meeting with army commanders praised efforts in fighting insurgents but said the struggle was ongoing.