A number of car bombs went off Thursday in Baghdad. The car bombs targeted primarily Iraqi soldiers in the city and a northern Baghdad suburb, killing one and injuring 19, police officials said, according to the AP.
The deadliest bombing Thursday reported at about 11 a.m. near an American military base close to Taji, north of Baghdad, killing one and wounding six people, an Iraqi police official said. In the early morning hours, three bombs attached to three parked cars went off nearly simultaneously in Baghdad's neighborhood of Azamiyah, injuring four police officers and two civilians, said another police official.
Another blast targeting a police patrol in Baghdad's eastern Rusafa district, wounding seven people, a third police official said.
The violence comes one day before the arrival from Tehran of the body of Shiite leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, who died Wednesday. The funeral procession was expected to start in Baghdad and make stops in several cities in Iraq's southern provinces before burial in Najaf, Iraq's Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi told AP.
Meanwhile, Iraq has once again asked without success that Syria hand over terror suspects sheltering within its borders and, a government spokesman said on Thursday. "The Iraq government has asked for a long time that these people be handed over," spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told AFP.
"The list was given a few times during bilateral security committees but we always received evasive answers. Iraq will not accept this kind of situation." On Tuesday Iraq recalled its ambassador in Damascus. "Our relations with Syria have reached a crossroads of whether they choose to have good relations with Iraq, or whether they choose to protect persons who attack Iraq," Dabbagh noted.
