Two car bombs exploded in Baghdad today as commuters were starting their working week, killing at least 31 people and wounding dozens of others.
The blasts broke what has been a period of relative calm since the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and underlined the challenges facing Iraqi security officials in protecting their capital city.
Over a dozen people were killed when a car bomb exploded in western Baghdad’s affluent Mansour neighbourhood.
Another 10 were wounded in the attack, and security officials are investigating whether it was the work of a suicide car bomb targeting a crowded commercial area near an AsiaCell store, one of Iraq’s biggest mobile phone providers.
Minutes later another car bomb exploded in Kazimiyah neighbourhood’s Adan square in the northern sector of the city, killing at least 13 and wounding more than 70 others, police and hospital sources said. Two policemen were killed in the blast.
Police said the Kazimiyah blast was the work of a suicide car bomber targeting a checkpoint in a residential area leading to a branch office of the Ministry of National Security.
Earlier today, two people in a minibus were killed when a roadside bomb went off in the Shula neighbourhood of north-western Baghdad, police and hospital officials said.