Iraq Hit by Wave of Bombings

Posted on Apr 23, 2010

AP / Karim Kadim

Men carry a victim of one of a series of bomb blasts in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad on Friday.

A series of deadly bombings in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq struck a party headquarters, two mosques and other sites, in apparent retaliation for a U.S.-Iraqi raid five days earlier that killed the two top leaders of the country’s insurgency.

At least 58 people were killed. —JCL

The New York Times:

A coordinated series of explosions struck a party headquarters, two mosques, a market and a shop in Baghdad on Friday, deepening the country’s turmoil amid a political impasse and a concerted military campaign against the leaders of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

The attacks, which killed at least 58 people and wounded scores more in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, were the worst of an intermittent wave of bombings since the parliamentary election on March 7. The outcome of the vote remains unclear, as election officials prepare to conduct a partial recount in Baghdad and possibly other provinces.

[...] The attacks came five days after a joint Iraqi-American raid killed the top two leaders of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Iraqi and American officials hailed the killings — and a series of other killings and arrests before and after — as a devastating blow to the group. At the same time they warned that retaliation was almost certain to come, though it was not clear that the group was behind the attacks on Friday. 

Read more

More Below the Ad

New and Improved Comments

We are launching a major overhaul of our comments section.

In addition to more robust spam filtering and moderation, new features include the ability to rate other comments, sort how they are displayed and respond directly via e-mail or in a thread.

Unfortunately, commenters will lose their existing Truthdig identities. It's a pain, we know, but on the plus side you will now be able to log in with a plethora of options, including Google, Twitter, Facebook and Disqus accounts.

Before launching this system we spent months in discussion with our top commenters. We listened to the feedback and we hope you like what we've come up with.

Please direct any problems or concerns to us via our contact page.