IRAQ: Car bombs explode near Iranian embassy in Baghdad

Two car bombs explode in a parking lot in front of Iranian embassy in Baghdad while another goes off in Hilla. Two car bombs exploded in a parking lot in front of the Iranian embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday (April 24) wounding four people. It is in the same area where two bombs exploded the day, killing one person and wounding six others. The embassy, in Baghdad's Salhiya neighbourhood, was not damaged. An Iraqi militant group, Ansar al-Sunna, claimed responsibility for Monday's (April 23) attack in a statement posted on a Web site used by insurgents in Iraq. No group has yet claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attack. Ansar al-Sunna is a Sunni Muslim militant group that has claimed several abductions and killings since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. U.S. officials accuse Iranians of fuelling Iraq's sectarian conflict by supplying weapons and training to Shi'ite militias. Relations between Iraq and Iran have also cooled over the continued detention by U.S. forces of five Iranians accused of being intelligence agents. Earlier, a roadside bomb went off next to a U.S. military convoy, damaging a U.S. military vehicle. There was no word on casualties in the attack that took place in Qanat al-Jaish area of eastern Baghdad. The U.S. forces did not give an immediate report on the attack. Late on Monday, a car bomb near a restaurant killed three people and wounded eight in Hilla, 100 km (60 miles) south of Baghdad. "We work hard to earn a living. We were inside the restaurant when a man parked his car outside. We thought it was just like other cars. But we did not know that it would be like this. And then there was this big blast! What did we do? What did owner of restaurant do? We all were hurt," said restaurant employee Hassan Hadi. Despite a two-month-old security plan that has seen the deployment of tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops in Baghdad, sectarian death squads, car bomb attacks still plague the city.

ITN Source | April 24, 2007

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