At least 17 people were killed in Iraq on Thursday, seven of them in a suicide car bomb attack in Baghdad, security and medical sources said on the second day of violence since the curfew in the capital was lifted. Seven civilians were killed and 27 wounded when a suicide car bomber blew himself up near Mishin trade complex in the Riyadh area of southeast Baghdad, a medic at BaghdadÂ’s Ibn Nafis hospital said. A security source said that first a mortar fell on the complex, and when people gathered near the site a car bomber then approached and detonated his vehicle. In another attack a bomb exploded in the Suq Haraj market in central BaghdadÂ’s Bab al-Sharqi area, killing three and wounding 19, Al-Kindi hospital said.Another car bomb in the Faraj market at BaghdadÂ’s northeastern Qahira neighbourhood killed three more and wounded 12. The nearby College of Fine Arts was also targeted with a car bomb that killed two civilians and wounded three others.
A roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol killed a soldier and wounded four civilian pedestrians on BaghdadÂ’s Palestine Street. A civilian was killed and another three wounded when a bomb exploded near their car northeast of the southern city of Amara, a source with the cityÂ’s Civil Defence authority said. Police also recovered four bodies, three of them in police uniforms, from the Tigris River near the town of Suweira, south of Baghdad.
Meanwhile, a dozen mortars slammed into Baghdad’s northern Sunni district of Adhamiyah overnight. The rain of mortars, which went on into the early hours, filled the night air with the sound of explosions, but according to authorities they did not cause any casualties. “Twelve mortars fell on Adhamiyah but did not result in any human loss, although they caused heavy damage to houses,” said an official in the security services.