Explosions in Northern Iraq Claim More Lives

By Edward Yeranian
Cairo
29 August 2009

Two separate explosions in northern Iraq have killed at least 15 people and wounded 30 others Saturday, as the security situation across the country remains tense. Iraqi political leaders and ordinary citizens condemned the recent rise in violence.

Bomb attacks in two northern Iraqi towns have caused more deaths and injuries Saturday, while the security situation across the country remains tense.

Baghdad TV showed pools of blood and chunks of cinderblock from the explosion of a bomb in the Kurdish village of Sinjar, near Mosul. The same village was hit by a pair of suicide-bombers on August 13.

Eyewitnesses say that Saturday's bomb attack struck a local market and that the casualties include many women and children. Members of the small Yazidi sect which live in the area were the apparent targets.

Iraqi officers inspect the scene following a car bomb in Shirqat, 100 kms north of the city of Tikrit, 29 Aug 2009

A suicide car-bombing, earlier, killed five policeman and several civilians near an Iraqi police station in the town of Shirqat, close to Tikrit. At least a dozen people were also wounded.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, who held a press conference with Iran's visiting foreign minister, condemned the recent upsurge in terrorism:

He says that he condemns these acts [of terrorism] and deplores the [number of] victims of these criminal and terrorist attacks. The Iraqi people, he insists, will persist and overcome these attacks, and raise its [their] voice to show [and] proclaim that it [they] will not be silenced [by terrorism].

Meanwhile, in Baghdad, several dozen demonstrators carried signs and chanted "down with terrorism," according to Al Baghdadia TV. One demonstrator complained that the Iraqi government was "not doing enough to protect its citizens."

A young man with a beard also denounced the recent wave of bombings, insisting that everyone has been affected by terrorism:

He says that from the bottom of our souls and everything that makes us Iraqis, we condemn these cowardly attacks that have hit women, children, the elderly, the young and all other categories of society.

Many Iraqi members of parliament and other politicians condemned the recent terror attacks in interviews on Iraqi TV, with some of them accusing Iran, some of them accusing Syria and others accusing Al Qa'eda of the bombings.

Two massive truck bombs in Baghdad, on August 19, killed 95 people and wounded close to 600 others.

Violence across Iraq has decreased during the past twelve months, but a number of high-profile attacks continue to plague the country.