Bomb kills at least 21 near Baghdad mosque

updated 1:12 p.m. ET May 28, 2007

BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomber struck a busy commercial district in central Baghdad on Monday, killing at least 21 people and damaging a Sunni shrine, police and hospital officials said.

The bomb went off at 2 p.m. in the Sinak commercial district on the east side of the Tigris River near the Abdul-Qadir al-Gailani mosque.

AP Television News video showed dozens of astonished people at the scene of the Sinak explosion as they walked around charred cars and debris that littered the scene. Firefighters in yellow helmets struggled to extinguish the fire as ambulances rushed to evacuate the wounded.

Ghaith Karim, a 38-year-old Shiite cloth merchant, was heading to the bus station near Sinak when he saw a fireball and heard the loud blast: “It was tremendous. I felt the ground was shaking.”

The cleric in charge of the mosque, Mahmoud al-Issawi, said the blast also damaged the building’s dome, while the footage showed damage to its minaret.

“The enemies of Iraq are the only one who get benefit out of that bombing. These enemies have targeted our homeland, religion and our brotherhood,” al-Issawi told Iraqiya TV.

15 abducted
Also in central Baghdad, a battle raged after insurgents hijacked two buses and kidnapped at least 15 passengers, police said.

At least three policemen had been killed and eight wounded, including four passersby, authorities said.

The small buses where traveling through the Fadhil neighborhood, a Sunni enclave in central Baghdad, when they were waylaid by unidentified gunmen in three cars at 10:15 a.m.

The insurgents then abducted at least 15 passengers and took them to a nearby abandoned government building, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

The buses were heading from Baghdad’s central Bab al-Mudham bus station to the city’s eastern Shiite neighborhoods.

The fighting began when Iraqi security forces reached the scene about 30 minutes later, police said.

Nine militants were arrested as they attacked security forces from nearby alleys with light weapons.

According to Iraqi police, at least two U.S. helicopters were hovering overhead and U.S. forces had taken up positions near the fighting, but were not directly involved.

Separately, police said that a roadside bomb killed two people and injured nine when it detonated under a parked car in the central Baghdad district of Bab al-Muadham. Another two people were killed and six were wounded after two mortar rounds slammed into a street in Karrada, a Shiite-dominated neighborhood in downtown Baghdad, police said.

MORE FROM MIDEAST & N. AFRICA

Mideast & N. Africa Section Front

Ahmadinejad: Iran will further enrich uranium Lebanese Cabinet lets Hezbollah keep its weapons Iran whistleblower silenced by deadly salad Israeli police arrest settler leader in West Bank Iranian sect head seeks asylum for beliefs U.K.: Iran confirms release of 5 British sailors Newsweek: Dubai is Persian Gulf's Lehman Bros. NYT: With Iraq foothold, oil giants eye future Dubai debt plan fails to soothe Gulf markets Mideast & N. Africa Section Front   Add Mideast & N. Africa headlines to your news reader: