More than three dozen killed in series of Baghdad bombings

Three bombings in the New Baghdad section of the city killed more than three dozen people Saturday, hours before the city's longtime curfew was set to be lifted. 

|
Ahmad Mousa/Reuters
A member of the Iraqi security forces walks past the site of a bomb attack in Baghdad February 7, 2015. At least 34 people were killed in three bombings around Baghdad on Saturday, police said, hours before the government was due to lift a long-standing night-time curfew on the capital. At least 50 people were wounded in the blasts, the officials said.

A series of bombings in the Iraqi capital Saturday killed more than three dozen people hours before the city's longtime curfew was set to come to an end.

The deadliest attack happened in the New Baghdad section of the city. Police officials said a suicide bomber targeted a street filled with hardware stores, killing 22 people and wounding at least 45.

The second attack took place shortly afterward in central Baghdad's popular Shorja market. Police said two devices detonated 25 meters apart from one another, killing at least 11 people and wounding 26.

Also, at the Abu Cheer market on a Shiite block of southwestern Baghdad, at least four people were killed and 15 wounded when a bomb detonated outside an outdoor food market.

There has been no claim for any of the attacks thus far. Hospital officials confirmed the casualties. All officials spoke anonymously as they are not authorized to brief the media.

The incident comes ahead of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's decision to lift Iraq's longtime curfew beginning at midnight Sunday.

Baghdad has remained relatively calm amid a rampage in northern and western Iraq by the al-Qaida-inspired Islamic State group. Recent bombings have frequently targeted Shiite-majority areas in the capital, but the violence has been considerably subdued from the darkest days of sectarian bloodletting in 2006 and 2007.

Iraqi officials have repeatedly assured that the capital is secure, despite the occasional targeting of Baghdad's Shiite-majority neighborhoods by the Sunni militant group.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to More than three dozen killed in series of Baghdad bombings
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2015/0207/More-than-three-dozen-killed-in-series-of-Baghdad-bombings
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe