Car bomb blasts around Baghdad on Wednesday killed at least 70 people, as IraqÂ’s national unity coalition collapsed under the weight of sectarian tensions.New government figures also revealed civilian deaths in the country rose by on e-third last month. Three large bombs tore through crowded districts of the capital, leaving at least 70 people dead. In the largest blast, a truck bomb detonated near a filling station in the west of the city, setting fire to a huge fuel tank, killing at least 50 people and wounding at least 60 more, Iraqi security officials said.
Earlier a car bomb ripped through a busy shopping district, killing at least 16 Iraqis and wounding 14, according to Brigadier General Qassim Atta, an Iraqi army spokesman for Baghdad. There was no word on who might have planted the bomb.
A third car bomb in the southern neighbourhood of Dura killed three more people and wounded another five, according to security officials. Two off-duty Iraqi policemen were shot dead when gunmen ambushed their car in the Al-Saydiya neighbourhood in southwest Baghdad, a security official said.
As the explosions tore apart the city, ministers from the Concord Front, Iraq’s largest Sunni bloc, resigned from the ruling coalition. “The Front announces its withdrawal from the government of Nuri Al-Maliki and the deputy prime minister and the ministers will submit their resignation today,” said Rafie Al-Issawi, minister of state for foreign affairs.Issawi made the announcement at a press conference inside Baghdad’s Green Zone as Sunni Vice President Tareq Al-Hashemi and other senior members of the bloc stood behind him.
Hashemi will remain vice president and the bloc’s 44 parliamentarians will return to the National Assembly in September after its summer recess, when they will swell the already growing ranks of the opposition. “Our central and historic goal is reform. We will reconsider the withdrawal tomorrow if they review our demands,” Hashemi said.
The decision comes at a time when Maliki’s government is under intense pressure to make use of the space afforded by a five-month-old “surge” of US troops to hammer out political agreements between the rival factions.
Meanwhile, at least 1,652 civilians were killed in Iraq in July, 33 percent more than in the previous month, according to figures compiled by the Iraqi health, defence and interior ministries and made available to AFP.
Also, the US military said four more troops were killed on Tuesday. Separately, Britain confirmed that a bomb in the southern city of Basra had killed another of its soldiers on Tuesday. US forces also killed three suspects and captured 27 others in raids across Iraq Tuesday and Wednesday, the military said. The operations targeted Al Qaeda in Iraq leaders in central and northern parts of the country, the military said in a statement.
American ground forces backed by helicopter gunships killed three suspects and detained 11 east of Balad, the military said. Three more were captured in Mosul, along with four others in the Tarmiyah area, it added.