Blasts kill 63 in Iraq mired in political crisis
A series of bombings hit Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 63 people in the first big assault attack on Iraq’s capital since a sectarian crisis erupted within its government just days after the US troop withdrawal.
A series of bombings hit Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 63 people in the first big assault attack on Iraq’s capital since a sectarian crisis erupted within its government just days after the US troop withdrawal.
The apparently coordinated bombings were the first sign of a violent backlash against Shia Muslim Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s move to sideline two Sunni Muslim rivals, raising the risk of a relapse into the sort of sectarian bloodletting that drove Iraq to the brink of civil war a few years ago.
At least 18 people were killed when a suicide bomber driving an ambulance detonated the vehicle near a government office in Baghdad’s Karrada district, sending up a dust cloud and scattering car parts into a kindergarten, according to police and health officials.
In total 63 people were killed and 194 were wounded in more than ten explosions across Baghdad. Most of the targeted districts were Shia.