• published: 20 Mar 2013
• views: 135

Bombings in Baghdad kill 56 on eve of Iraq war anniversary Link to video: Baghdad rocked by explosions on 10th anniversary of Iraq invasion Hisham Shouar was 200 metres from his shop when the car bomb detonated, killing six people and injuring three others a short distance from the fortified Green Zone. The blast tore through his shop, where he sells toys and groceries, as well as a currency exchange and a pharmacy, setting fire to the cars parked around it. The bomb was one of 12 devices to detonate in Baghdad (video) in a deadly wave of explosions by Sunni extremists aimed at Shia areas that left 56 dead and 200 injured. The attacks took place 10 years to the day after President George W Bush announced the start of the US-led invasion of Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein. Responding to the attacks, Iraq's cabinet announced a few hours later that it had decided to postpone provincial elections set for 20 April in two restive provinces -- Anbar and Nineveh, which have seen escalating Sunni protests against the Shia-dominated government because of the security situation. In the immediate aftermath Shouar and a friend were tidying up the damage. "To tell the truth we're beyond being scared," he said. "You get used to it. You become numb to the explosions." Within a few minutes, he added, his telephone was ringing with friends telling him about other explosions and other deaths. The brutal series of attacks began at 8am outside a restaurant in Mashtal, killing four people and injuring 15. In the two hours that followed the city was plunged into confusion as the death toll mounted almost by the minute and areas were sealed off by security forces. One witness to the first bombing, who had just arrived at work, said : "It was a huge explosion at the junction close to where my office was, close to a popular restaurant. I heard the bomb go off in an area which is crowded at this time of day." Others described wrecked cars and blood-streaked streets. That blast was followed by another explosion not far from the interior ministry. Minutes later thick clouds of swirling black smoke were billowing from the scene. Minutes later more bombs were exploding across the city. In New Baghdad two labourers were killed and eight injured when a roadside bomb. In the sprawling impoverished neighbourhood of Sadr City, a bomb stuck to the underside of a minibus killed three commuters and wounded seven people. Hussein Abdul-Khaliq, a government employee who lives in Sadr city, told Associated Press he heard the explosion and went out to find the minibus on fire. "We helped take some trapped women and children from outside the burning bus before the arrival of the rescue teams. Our clothes were covered with blood as we tried to rescue the trapped people or to move out the bodies," he said. An hour later, in another part of the city, a second blast was audible and another column of smoke a kilometre or so distant. The most serious attack, however, was a car bombing near the ministry of labour and social affairs in Baghdad's eastern Qahira neighbourhood at around 10am, which killed seven people and wounded 21. The bombs were set to hit mainly soft targets -- day labourers waiting for work, passersby, commuters in a minibus, diners - and were smuggled into a city already under tight security after last Wednesday's audacious al-Qaida assault on the justice ministry. "I was driving my taxi and suddenly I felt my car rocked. Smoke was all around. I saw two bodies on the ground. People were running and shouting everywhere," Al Radi, a taxi driver caught in one of the blasts in Baghdad's Sadr City, told Reuters. The attacks took place on the tenth anniversary of the first airstrikes of the Iraq war, when US jets and missiles targeted Baghdad's Dora Farms, where it was believed Saddam Hussein was visiting. While there was no immediate claim of responsibility for Tuesday's attacks, they bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida in Iraq.