IRAQ: Series of explosions devastates homes in Baghdad just before nightfall killing up to 50 people and wounding around 250

A series of explosions devastated homes in Baghdad just before nightfall on Thursday (August 31), killing up to 50 people and wounding about 250 people, some of them in an apartment block that collapsed, government officials said. A senior Interior Ministry official and sources in police headquarters and at some of the seven blast sites said rockets hit neighbourhoods across the mainly Shi'ite east of the city. The Interior Ministry official put the Baghdad toll at 50 dead. Health Minister Ali al-Shemari said 257 people were treated for wounds. No official would say who was responsible. Iraqi police put the death toll at 43 killed and 181 wounded in the blasts. A Web site used by Sunni militants published a statement purportedly from al Qaeda's umbrella organisation in Iraq. It renewed the sort of call for a holy war on the Shi'ite majority that many fear could help provoke all-out sectarian civil war. After three years of Sunni rebel attacks, violence by Shi'ite militias, both against minorities and fellow Shi'ites embroiled in power struggles in the oil-rich south, now kills more Iraqis than the insurgency, U.S. and Iraqi officials say. Despite recent bloodshed, the security drive in Baghdad has cut killings by half in the past month, officials have said.

ITN Source | September 1, 2006

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