Blasts kill at least 55 across Iraq before poll
Source: Agencies |
April 16, 2013, Tuesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
CAR bombs and blasts in cities across Iraq, including two explosions at a checkpoint outside Baghdad's international airport, killed at least 55 people and injured more than 200 others yesterday days before provincial elections.
No one claimed responsibility for the attacks in Baghdad, Kirkuk, Tuz Khurmato and other towns to the north to south, but al-Qaida's local wing is waging a campaign against Shiites and the government to stoke sectarian confrontation.
Iraqis will vote on Saturday for members of provincial councils. The ballot for nearly 450 provincial council seats will be an important measure of Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's political muscle against his Sunni and Shiite rivals before a parliamentary election in 2014.
A dozen candidates have already been killed so far in campaigning, including two Sunni politicians over the weekend.
The deadliest attacks hit Baghdad, where multiple car bombs and other explosions killed 25 people.
In one attack, a parked car bomb exploded at a bus station in the eastern suburbs of Kamaliya, killing four and wounding 13.
Two more car bombs exploded in a rare attack in a parking lot near the heavily guarded entrances to Baghdad International Airport. Three people were killed, including a bodyguard of a Shiite lawmaker whose convoy was passing by. The lawmaker escaped unharmed.
No one claimed responsibility for the attacks in Baghdad, Kirkuk, Tuz Khurmato and other towns to the north to south, but al-Qaida's local wing is waging a campaign against Shiites and the government to stoke sectarian confrontation.
Iraqis will vote on Saturday for members of provincial councils. The ballot for nearly 450 provincial council seats will be an important measure of Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's political muscle against his Sunni and Shiite rivals before a parliamentary election in 2014.
A dozen candidates have already been killed so far in campaigning, including two Sunni politicians over the weekend.
The deadliest attacks hit Baghdad, where multiple car bombs and other explosions killed 25 people.
In one attack, a parked car bomb exploded at a bus station in the eastern suburbs of Kamaliya, killing four and wounding 13.
Two more car bombs exploded in a rare attack in a parking lot near the heavily guarded entrances to Baghdad International Airport. Three people were killed, including a bodyguard of a Shiite lawmaker whose convoy was passing by. The lawmaker escaped unharmed.
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