WORLD> Middle East
2 explosions in northern Baghdad kill at least 28
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-11-10 23:07

BAGHDAD -- A suicide bomber struck Monday in a crowd gathered at the site of an explosion that moments earlier had damaged a bus filled with schoolgirls, with both blasts killing at least 28 people and wounding 68 others, authorities said.


Nine-year-old Abdulla Mohammed is helped by a medic in a hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, Nov. 10, 2008. A suicide bomber struck in a crowd that had gathered where an explosion went off moments earlier, with both blasts killing at least 28 people and wounding 68 others, officials said.  [Agencies]
Also Monday, a female suicide bomber attacked a security checkpoint in downtown Baqouba, killing five people including a local leader of Sunni group opposed to al-Qaida, police said. Fifteen other people were wounded in that explosion, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

The twin blasts -- the deadliest in Baghdad in months -- occurred during the morning rush hour in the mostly Shiite Kasrah section of Azamiyah neighborhood in the northern part of the Iraqi capital. They shattered storefronts along a crowded street and set fire to more than a dozen cars.

Police said the first explosion damaged a minibus carrying young girls to school. The second happened when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt in the middle of a crowd that had gathered around the vehicle.

Police officials giving the toll were unclear how many died in each blast.

The Interior Ministry, which controls the police, gave the casualty figure of 28 dead and 68 wounded. A check of four hospitals in the Baghdad area indicated 29 were killed, and hospital officials said some of the wounded were in critical condition.

Abbas Fadhil said he was working in a nearby restaurant that was damaged in the blasts.

"I rushed to the site and saw several girl students trapped in a bus and screaming for help. We took the girls outside the bus and rushed them to the hospitals," he said.

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