WRAP Series of blasts in Bagdad kill 16, wound 87, adds hospital pix

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• published: 23 Jul 2015
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SHOTLIST ++QUALITY AS INCOMING++ Baghdad's Camp Sara neighbourhood 1. Wide shot of area where the blast occurred with fire trucks and crowd of police and onlookers 2. Policemen jumping out of their vehicle heading to the scene 3. Various of burnt out cars 4. Covered dead bodies lying on ground next to fire trucks 5. Various of blast scene 6. Ambulance driving at scene 7. Wide shot of blast scene 8. Iraqi troops on back of two vehicles 9. SOUNDBITE: (Arabic) Angry resident, Vox pop: "Either America was behind these blasts, or the government or the political parties. All of those were behind such violent acts. Three years have gone by and nothing has been done to help the people." 10. Various of burnt out car 11. Covered body on ground 12. More bodies being loaded to ambulance 13. Extensive damage to building 14. Various of destruction with people covering bodies Central Baghdad 15. Sign reading "Ibn al-Nafis Teaching Hospital" 16. Various of ambulance driving towards Ibn al-Nafis hospital UPSOUND siren Nahda neighbourhood 17. Sign reading "al-Kindi Teaching Hospital" 18. Various of wounded lying on hospital beds 19. Injured man on stretcher being wheeled to ward 22. Men fanning injured man on bed 23. Various of wounded lying on hospital beds STORYLINE: A series of bomb blasts went off in rapid succession in a shopping district in a mainly Christian neighbourhood of Baghdad on Wednesday, killing 16 people and wounding 87 others, officials said. Just before noon, a car bomb and two roadside bombs blew up in the span of ten minutes in a shopping district of the Camp Sara neighbourhood, which is predominantly Christian, according to the Iraqi military. The blasts left 16 dead and injured 87 others, including shoppers and 15 policemen, destroyed cars and collapsed part of a nearby building, they said. Bodies lay in the street next to the smoking wreckage of burning cars. Rescue workers piled corpses into an ambulance parked next to the crumbled facade of a building, while a policeman warned residents to leave the area for fear more bombs would explode. The wounded were taken to Ibn al-Nafis and al-Kindi hospitals to receive treatment. An increasingly common insurgent tactic is to detonate one bomb to draw rescue workers and onlookers, then to explode a second device to cause mass casualties. An angry resident condemned the deadly attacks, and blamed both the US and the Iraqi government for the ongoing violence in Iraq. "Three years have gone by and nothing has been done to help the people," he told AP Television News at the scene. Earlier in the nearby New Baghdad area, a bomb blast hit a convoy carrying the Iraqi industry minister. Three police guards were killed and nine others wounded, but the minister was not harmed, officials said. Other attacks around Iraq killed five others. The US military also announced the death of two soldiers, the latest in what has been one of the bloodiest stretches of days for American troops this year. At least 17 troops have been killed in combat since Saturday, including eight US soldiers who died in gun battles and bomb blasts on Monday in Baghdad, the most killed in a single day in the capital since July 2005. The casualties come amid an intensified US-Iraqi military sweep launched in Baghdad last month to clear neighbourhoods house by house of weapons, militiamen and insurgents. Despite the sweep, attacks have continued in the capital, a deadly combination of attacks by Sunni insurgents and tit-for-tat killings and bombings by Shiite militias and Sunni groups that have killed thousands this month. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/81b1b8b8f286e44758d22aaa737067c1 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork