BAGHDAD, May 30 (Xinhua) -- A string of car bombings killedover 40 people
across Iraq on Tuesday, making it the secondbloodiest day this week in the
war-ravaged country.
In a deadliest attack on Tuesday evening, a car bomb in amarket blast in northern Baghdad killed 22, with another 58injured, an Interior Ministry source said.
The source said the blast occurred around 7:30 p.m. (1530 GMT)in a market
in Husaniya, some 30 km north of the capital.The police defused an un-detonated
car bomb after arriving atthe scene, avoiding a potentially higher death
toll.
Just hours earlier, a suicide car bomb in Hilla, 90 km south ofBaghdad
killed 12 and wounded over 30, police said.The Hilla attack took place at around
6:00 p.m. (1400 GMT) whena suicide bomber drove an explosive-laden car and blew
up thevehicle near a car shop.
The town of Hilla has witnessed a number of bloody attacks inthe past.
On Feb. 28, 2005, a car bomb attack at a medical center herekilled more
than 110 Iraqi civilians and wounded around 200,marking the deadliest single
attack in Iraq since the U.S.-ledinvasion in March, 2003.
Also on Tuesday, a third blast occurred at around 9:00 p.m. (1700 GMT) when
a bomb hidden in a plastic bag went off outside abakery in east of Baghdad,
killing at least nine people andinjuring 10, police said.
The blast rocked the New Baghdad area, a mixed neighborhood inthe eastern
part of the city.
In another development, the bodies of two Marines missing as aresult of a
helicopter crash in the western Anbar province lastSaturday have been recovered,
a U.S. military statement said onTuesday.
Earlier in the day, mortar rounds hit the heavily guardedInterior
Ministry in central Baghdad, killing two governmentworkers.
Police said the mortar round, targeting the Interior Ministrycompound,
killed two female employees and wounded three others.The past two days saw an
intensifying of violence in the war-torn country.
On Monday, around 40 people were also killed in separateattacks, including
a car bomb that killed two CBS crew members andseverely injured a female
correspondent for the network. Enditem(By Ran Wei)
