Iraq attacks kill 60, wound dozens on Thursday

Simultaneous early morning attacks on targets across Iraq killed at least 60 people and wounded dozens on Thursday.

At least 32 people were killed in blasts in Baghdad where 10 explosions tore through neighbourhoods during rush hour and other attacks targeted police patrols, commuters and crowds gathered in shopping areas.

"We were sitting at a restaurant having soup for breakfast when the bomb exploded. I lost consciousness and then saw smoke and dust when I came to. I saw people and body parts everywhere," police officer Ahmed Kadhim told Reuters.

Kadhim suffered shrapnel wounds to his left leg and back when a car bomb exploded near a restaurant killing six people and wounding 18 in Baghdad's northern Kadhimiya district.

The interior ministry blamed Al Qaeda and affiliated armed groups for the attacks it said were an attempt to show that Iraq's security situation remained unstable.

"The attacks aimed to spark sectarian strife among the Iraqi people, and to prevent the Arab League meeting from being held," Parliament Speaker Osama Al Nujaifi said.

More than a dozen blasts and attacks hit other cities across Iraq from Mosul in the north to Hilla, south of Baghdad, many of them targeting police.

In Thursday's violence, one car bomb in the capital killed at least nine people and wounded 27 in the upmarket Karrada neighbourhood, hurling shrapnel into the next street and blowing out glass from nearby buildings.

Witnesses saw at four wrecked cars full of shrapnel and bloodied seats near an ice-cream shop at the site of another blast.

In at least three  neighbourhoods in Baghdad, nine policemen were killed, and in the capital's northwestern Kadhimiya district, a car bomb killed six people when it struck a street lined with restaurants.

In the biggest attack outside the capital, a car bomb killed seven people and wounded 33 in the town of Balad, north of Baghdad. 
 

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