A suicide car bomber struck a busy commercial district in central Baghdad on Monday, killing at least 21 people and damaging a Sunni shrine, police and hospital officials said. The bomb went off at 2 p.m. in the Sinak commercial district on the east side of the Tigris River near the Abdul-Qadir al-Gailani mosque.AP Television News video showed dozens of astonished people at the scene of the Sinak explosion as they walked around charred cars and debris that littered the scene. Firefighters in yellow helmets struggled to extinguish the fire as ambulances rushed to evacuate the wounded. The cleric in charge of the mosque, Mahmoud al-Issawi, said the blast also damaged the building's dome, while the footage showed damage to its minaret.
"The enemies of Iraq are the only one who get benefit out of that bombing. These enemies have targeted our homeland, religion and our brotherhood," al-Issawi told Iraqiya TV.