Iraq Crisis: 12 dead after suicide bomb in Baghdad
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Version 0 of 1. A suicide bomber has killed at least nine people and injured 23 more in Baghdad, according to security and medical officials. The explosion happened outside a shop selling army fatigues on a busy road near Tahrir Square in Central Baghdad. According to reports, the explosion left a scene of devastation with many left with serious injuries. One journalist reported that Medical staff had been seen carrying the wounded on stretchers into the Baghdad’s Hospital. Earlier there had been conflicting views from police and the Iraqi government over whether it was a roadside bomb or suicide bomber that had caused the blast. Police said initially that the blast had been caused by an attacker wearing a high explosive vest, while one interior minister believed it to have been caused by a roadside bomb. The explosion in Baghdad comes a few hours after six people, including three soldiers and three volunteers, were killed when four mortars landed on a military recruitment centre in Khlais, 30 miles north of Baghdad. Volunteers had gathered at the centre to to join the Iraqi Army after influential Shia cleric encouraged Iraq’s people to take up arms and defend the country against the hard-line insurgents. With the government already struggling to keep Sunni Islamist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) from making territorial gains in the north of the country, the threat of violence so close to their stronghold of Baghdad will be a major worry for them. |