Insurgent attacks ripped across Baghdad on Thursday. At least 20 people were killed and 24 bodies were found dumped in the capital -- killings that bore the hallmarks of sectarian violence. The bodies were found in various neighborhoods, police said. The dumping of these remains has been linked with Sunni-Shiite retribution killings.In the bloodiest attack, at least 10 people were killed and several others were wounded when a suicide car blast occurred near Iraqi emergency police headquarters in the southeastern neighborhood of Alwiya, emergency police said. Three vehicles and nearby shops were damaged in the bombing. Officers were refueling their vehicles in an industrial area behind the police station when the attack took place, police said.
In northern Baghdad, three people were killed and 13 others wounded when a car bomb exploded Thursday morning near a joint police and army patrol in the Qahira neighborhood, a Baghdad emergency police official said. A suicide car bomb also detonated outside a fueling station close to the Iraqi Interior Ministry complex in central Baghdad's Bab al-Shurji district, police officials said. Two police officers were killed and 23 other people were wounded, including six police officers, a source said.
In southern Baghdad's Dora neighborhood, two police officers were killed in a drive-by shooting. Three police officers were wounded when two roadside bombs exploded there. In western Baghdad, a civilian was killed and four police officers were wounded when a roadside bomb struck a police patrol. Also in that part of the capital, gunmen killed a doctor while he was on his way to work at Yarmouk Hospital. In southwestern Baghdad's neighborhood of Amil, a roadside bomb killed a civilian and wounded 13 others.