Suicide car bombers attacked the Trade Bank of Iraq yesterday, killing at least 27 people, an Interior Ministry source said.
The blasts wounded 53 people at one of the public sector's most active financial institutions, which is at the forefront of efforts to encourage foreign investment in Iraq as the sectarian violence that followed the 2003 US-led invasion fades.
They underscored fears of increasing violence as militants try to exploit the political vacuum that followed the March 7 election which produced no outright winner. A week earlier, gunmen and suicide bombers laid siege to Iraq's central bank in Baghdad, killing 18 people.
Baghdad security spokesman Major General Qassim Al Moussawi said two cars packed with around 80kg of explosives each were driven at the main gates of the Trade Bank of Iraq and detonated on striking blastwalls protecting the building. He put the initial death toll at 18, but an Interior Ministry source said later it had risen to 26. The building was badly damaged and several bank guards were killed. A bank employee who asked not to be identified said the damage and death toll would have been worse had the bank's guards not protected it and its windows not consisted of shatterproof glass.
At least two of the dead were police officers guarding a nearby Interior Ministry office that issues Iraqi identity cards, ministry sources said.
"I feel so sorry for what is happening to my country," said Mahmoud Asi, who was wounded along with his wife in the blast near his home. Blood stained his clothes.
"All the bank's guards were killed," he said. Security officials blamed the June 13 central bank attack on insurgents linked to Al Qaeda, saying they were trying to prove they remained potent after suffering significant blows this year, including the killing of their Iraq leaders.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for yesterday's attack on the Trade Bank of Iraq, but suicide bombings are a hallmark of Al Qaeda and other insurgent groups.
More blasts in Baghdad
Seven people were killed in attacks in the Iraqi capital Baghdad and the bodies of five women were found in the city centre, security officials said yesterday. Three roadside bombs planted in Hurriya, a Shia neighbourhood in the north of the capital, killed four people and wounded 16 on Saturday, said a security official.
Fire from a Katyusha multiple rocket launcher killed three people and wounded four in Al Obeidi, a Shia slum district in the far east of the capital.
In the Zayouna neighbourhood in central Baghdad, police found the bodies of five women. A security official said they were believed to have been killed two or three weeks ago. (AFP)