FOUR people have been killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a bus carrying holiday shoppers from a market, scattering children's toys across a highway bridge, security officials have said. | “It was packed with families preparing for the festival marking the end of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan. Fifteen people were also wounded, and were reported to be mostly women and children.” |
"We heard an explosion and rushed to the scene, where there was a bus on fire just 50 metres from an army checkpoint," said one witness. "We evacuated the women and children and there was this old woman among the wounded who said she was just coming from the market."
The blast came as Iraq's religious leaders meeting in the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia issued a call to stop the sectarian bloodletting gripping the country. "Is this the Mecca document? Killing children and those buying toys for them?" roared Abu Sajad, a stocky, white-bearded man in his 50s.