Coordinated Series of Bomb Attacks Blast Baghdad

April 06, 2010 — Distraught relatives started collecting the bodies of their loved ones from a hospital morgue early on Easter Monday, one day after a coordinated series of suicide bomb attacks in Baghdad.




[Umm Rafed, Relative of Deceased]:
"It was an awful blast. Six of my relatives were hurt in the attack, the youngest was a one-year-old and he was hurt in his head, he is in the neural injuries hospital. It was an awful morning."




Three suicide bombers detonated car bombs within moments of each other in the attacks on foreign missions in central Baghdad on Easter Sunday, killing as many as 41 people and wounding more than 200.

Authorities had warned of a possible escalation of violence after the March 7th parliamentary election, an event that Iraqis hoped would bring stability to their country. But no such success in absence of political security.




Main blasts were near the Iranian, Egyptian and German embassies.

One bomb from Easter Friday blew up in front of the Iranian embassy, just outside the Green Zone, destroying about 30 cars. The Iraqi Finance Ministry said the nearby offices of its budget directorate and the government real estate bank were also damaged.




At the Egyptian embassy, a bomber rammed his car into a concrete blast wall, creating a deep crater in the street.

Iraqi officials say security forces defused a fourth car bomb in the al-Masbah district of central Baghdad and arrested the would-be bomber.




Germany's Foreign Ministry say an Iraqi security guard working for the German embassy was among the dead. An Interior Ministry member says the three bombings killed 41 people and wounded nearly 249. Baghdad security spokesman Qassim al-Moussawi put the toll at 20 dead and 256 wounded.




A roadside bomb from Easter Sunday that targeted a police patrol in the capital wounded five officers and five civilians. A bomb attached to a civilian vehicle in Baghdad's southern Saidiya district killed two people on Easter Saturday.




The bombings followed a series of other incidents in and around the Iraqi capital.




On Easter Friday, gunmen invaded the Sunni village of Albusaifi, south of Baghdad, and killed 24 people, many of them executed with a gunshot to the head.




Then, mortar attacks on the capitols Green Zone, home to government buildings, official residences and foreign embassies. Four mortar attacks on Easter Saturday, and two more on Easter Sunday.

Also on the Saturday, a bomb attached to a civilian vehicle killed two people in Baghdad's southern Saidiya district. Then on Easter Sunday, a roadside bomb that targeted a police patrol in the capital wounded five officers and five civilians.

[Mohammed Ahmed, Wounded Victim]:




"The blast took place and I felt nothing but the secondary roof falling on my head. Then, I found myself here as the wounds were in my head."




Authorities say many of the victims were members of the Sons of Iraq, former insurgents who joined U.S. forces to fight al Qaeda militants, helping to turn the tide of the war.