At least 41 killed in bombings in Iraq

April 29, 2009

Iraq's Interior Ministry reported that at least 41 people were killed and a further 68 wounded on Wednesday after two car bombings in the country's capital of Baghdad.

Two explosions occurred within quarter of an hour of each other in the late afternoon in Sadr City. The bombings hit a restaurant and a flea market. A third vehicle in the area laden with bombs was discovered and defused without incident by police.

"I saw my blood covering the clothes that I had planned to take to my kids," said a witness to the incident, Saadi Rashid. "What a disaster when I felt that I couldn't bear to walk or even to stand."

Sadr City is a predominantly Shiite Muslim-populated area located in Eastern Baghdad, and is home to about two and a half million people. It has been the target of a series of attacks by suspected Sunni insurgents. In November 2006, five car bombings killed 215 people in the city in one of the most deadly attacks in the ongoing war.

The incidents occurred less than a week after a two-day span of bombings in the area killed 150 people. The attacks, which appear to be aimed at Shiite Muslims, have raised concerns that the Sunni insurgents are regrouping and have become stronger.