BAGHDAD - Suicide bombers attacked army checkpoints in Baghdad on Saturday, killing 28 people while foreign envoys held peace talks just three kilometres (two miles) away, a security official said. Six soldiers were among 26 killed when the attacker rammed a military position guarding the entrance to the east Baghdad Shia enclave of Sadr City as part of a city-wide operation to quell sectarian violence, he said.The attacker struck on a bridge leading from Palestine Street in central Baghdad to Mudaffer Square on the edge of Sadr City, spreading devastation over a wide area, and triggering a fire.
‘A vehicle attempting to manoeuvre through an Iraqi army checkpoint just south of the Sadr City security district was halted by soldiers manning a checkpoint,’ a US military statement said. ‘After stopping, the explosives in the vehicle were detonated,’ it said. ‘Iraqi army soldiers manning the checkpoint reported the incident and additional soldiers from the Iraqi army unit quickly set up a cordon, securing the immediate area from any additional threats,’ it added.
The US statement spoke of only six dead soldiers and 20 wounded civilians, but a doctor at the Imam Ali hospital in Sadr City said medics had received 18 bodies and treated 40 wounded. Meanwhile, an official at Ibn Nafees Hospital said it had seen at least four wounded from the same attack.