Masked gunmen opened fire on a crowd at a Baghdad bakery Friday, killing 11 people, police and witnesses said. According to The AP, gunmen in several vehicles blocked the road in front of the bakery and entered the place. They fired on the bakery workers, killing 11 people, an Iraqi police investigator said.
The shooting took place in the New Baghdad neighborhood, a predominantly Shiite Muslim area of the capital.
Meanwhile, A car bomb went off outside a Shiite mosque northeast of Baghdad on Friday, killing at least 12 people and injuring dozens, a police official and witnesses said. The blast in Balad Ruz, some 70 kms northeast of Baghdad, occurred as mosque services ended, killing 13 people and wounding 40, police Col. Tahseen Mohammed.
Elsewhere, an aide to Iraq's top Shiite cleric was injured in an assassination attempt in Baghdad after receiving threats from elements opposed to his support for Iraq's elections, a relative of the man said Friday.
Sheikh Ammar al-Hilali, a representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, was shot seven times by gunmen who opened fire from two cars as he left sunset prayers at a mosque on Tuesday, said the relative, Ali al-Lafta.
The man is being treated at a Baghdad hospital, he said.
