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| Iraq | |
| Baghdad Booms Bag at least 37 | |
| 2015-02-08 | |
| Baghdad - Ahead of Baghdad ending a decade-old nightly curfew, bombs exploded across the Iraqi capital on Saturday, killing at least 37 people in a stark warning of the dangers still ahead in this country torn by the Daesh group. The deadliest bombing happened in the capital’s New Baghdad neighbourhood, where a suicide bomber detonated his explosives in a street filled with hardware stores and a restaurant, killing 22 people and wounding at least 45, police said. “The restaurant was full of young people, children and women when the suicide bomber blew himself up,” witness Mohamed Saeed said. “Many got killed.” After the blast, bloody water mixed with olives and other debris from the restaurant as authorities tried to clean. A second attack happened in central Baghdad’s popular Shorja market, where two bombs some 25 metres apart exploded, killing at least 11 people and wounding 26, police said. Another bombing at the Abu Cheer outdoor market in southwestern Baghdad killed at least four people and wounded 15, police said. Hospital officials confirmed the casualty figures. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, though the Daesh group has launched attacks on Baghdad in the past. The attacks came as Iraq prepared to lift its nightly midnight-to-5am curfew on Sunday. The curfew largely has been in place since 2004, in response to the growing sectarian violence that engulfed Iraq after the US-led invasion a year earlier. There was no immediate comment on Saturday from Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi, who announced the end of the curfew on Thursday by decree. He also ordered that streets, long blocked off for security reasons, reopen for traffic and pedestrians. Iraqi officials repeatedly have assured that the capital is secure, despite militant groups occasionally attacking Baghdad’s Shia-majority neighbourhoods.
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| Posted by:Steve White |