Blasts in Baghdad kill 6, wound 20

This news updete by www.thearynews.com


BAGHDAD: A series of bomb blasts across Baghdad killed six people and injured more than 20 others Thursday, police said, in the fourth consecutive day of heightened violence in the Iraqi capital.

U.S. officials say attacks in Baghdad are averaging about four a day — down nearly 90 percent from levels in late 2006, when Shiite-Sunni fighting was at its high point and just before the U.S. troop surge that helped bring down violence in the capital.

But there has been a marked uptick this week, with a string of daily bombings in the capital that has killed more than 30 people and wounded around 80 others since Monday. The violence shows that insurgents remain a threat, even in the heavily secured Iraqi capital.

The deadliest attack Thursday came near a checkpoint in central Baghdad when two bombs exploded during the morning rush hour, police said. Four people were killed and seven wounded in the blasts.

Another bomb targeting a government convoy injured six people, police and hospital officials said. Police said the convoy was carrying city workers.

The twin blasts in the capital's Sunni enclave of Sheik Omar happened at a checkpoint manned by members of an Awakening Council, the mostly Sunni groups that have joined forces with the Americans against al-Qaida in Iraq.

Another two Awakening Council members was killed in a bombing just before noon in southeastern Baghdad. The councils come under frequent attacks by insurgents because they have sided with U.S. forces.

Roadside bombs targeting two separate convoys carrying Baghdad city officials injured eight people, the mayor's office said in a statement. The municipal officials were not hurt in the attacks.

Nine other people were wounded in a roadside bomb attack in Baghdad's sprawling Shiite slum of Sadr City, police said.


Via news