Many dead in Baghdad blast

27/01/2012| IslamWeb

At least 31 people have been killed after a car bomb exploded near a funeral procession outside a hospital in east Baghdad, officials say.

Another 50 people were wounded in Friday's attack, according to a doctor at the hospital where victims were taken to.

The late-morning explosion in Zarfraniya was confirmed by an interior ministry official.

However, the official said the attack was the result of a suicide attacker in an explosives-packed vehicle.

The blast hit the funeral procession of Mohammed al-Maliki, a real-estate agent who was killed along with his wife and son a day earlier in the west Baghdad neighborhood of Yarmuk, the doctor and interior ministry official said on condition of anonymity.

The explosion struck as the procession was transporting Maliki's body for the funeral services.

At least four women were among the fatalities according to a medical official.

There have been differing accounts of the attack by assailants that led to the death of Maliki and his family in Yarmuk.

Opening fire

A Yarmuk hospital medic said the attackers burst into a real-estate agency and killed three people.

An interior ministry official said four people, including two real-estate agents, died when assailants opened fire on their car.

The attack in Yarmuk comes a day after 17 people were killed in predominantly Sunni areas throughout the nation.

Ten were killed in a bomb attack that destroyed the house of two policemen brothers and their families in the central area of Hamia on Thursday. Both policemen, two infants and four women were among the dead, according to Iraqi authorities.

Three others died and 17 were wounded after two bombs exploded outside a popular cafe in the predominantly Sunni district of Sadiyah in southwestern Baghdad, the capital.

A police officer was also shot dead in the same neighborhood.

In Yarmouk, a mostly Sunni district in western Baghdad, assailants shot dead a real-estate agent and two of his clients, police said. Iraqi authorities could not identify the motive for the attack.

Also on Thursday, a motorcycle bomb missed a passing police patrol in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing two civilians and wounding five others, Sarhad Qadir, a police commander, said.

Although there were no claims of responsibility for Thursday's attacks, the bombings in Baghdad's Sunni districts suggest suspected Shia armed groups could be retaliating against Sunni fighters in the country.

Friday's attack brings the death toll from a wave of attacks since the beginning of the year to over 200. The attacks raise concerns that the surge in violence and an escalating political crisis might deteriorate into a civil war.

PHOTO CAPTION

Map of Iraq locating Baghdad

Al-Jazeera