Baghdad: Students die in college bomb attack
A suicide bomber struck outside a college campus in Iraq today, killing at least 31 people and injuring dozens.
Most of the victims near the business college in Baghdad were students, police said. At least 42 people were injured.
Other reports later said at least 38 people were killed and 44 injured in the attack.
Parents rushed to the site and some collapsed in tears after learning their children had been killed or injured.
The school is located in a mostly Shiite district of north-east Baghdad.
A wave of attacks came a day after Iraqi prime minister Nouri Maliki praised the progress of an ongoing US-Iraqi security operation seeking to cripple militant factions and sectarian killings in the capital.
The suicide attacker detonated a bomb-rigged belt near the main entrance to the college, where students were resuming mid-term exams after the two-day weekend in Iraq. Police said that guards confronted the bomber as he tried to enter the college grounds.
A 22-year-old student, Muhanad Nasir, said he saw a commotion at the gate. “Then there was an explosion. I did not feel anything for 15 minutes and when I returned to consciousness, I found myself in the hospital.” He suffered wounds to his head and chest.
The college is located in a mostly Shiite district, but does not limit its enrolment to that group. It’s part of Mustansiriyah University, which is located in another area of the city, and was the target of twin car bombs and a suicide blast last month that killed 70 people.
Earlier, two Katyusha rockets hit a Shiite enclave in southern Baghdad, killing at least 10, and a bomb near the fortified Green Zone claimed two lives, police said.
The Green Zone houses the US and British embassies and key Iraqi government offices. The blast was about 100 yards from the Iranian Embassy, but authorities did not believe it was targeting the compound.
A separate car bombing in a Shiite district in central Baghdad killed at least one person and injured four, police said.
In the northern city of Mosul, US troops killed two gunmen in a raid and captured a suspected local leader of the insurgent group al Qaida in Iraq, the military said. Additional details were no immediately available.
Iraq’s interior ministry, meanwhile, raised the toll from a suicide truck bombing in the violence-wracked Anbar province yesterday to 40 dead and 65 injured.
The attack on worshippers leaving a mosque in Habbaniyah, about 50 miles west of Baghdad, was believed linked to escalating internal Sunni battles between insurgents and those who oppose them.
US military envoys and pro-government leaders have worked hard to sway clan chiefs and other influential Anbar figures to turn against the militants, who include foreign jihadists fighting under the banner of al-Qaida in Iraq. The extremists have fought back with targeted killings and bombings against fellow Sunnis.
The imam of the mosque attacked yesterday had spoken out against extremists, residents said. Many people in the neighbourhood work for the Iraqi military and police forces, who frequently come under militant attack.
