BAGHDAD: A suicide bomber struck yesterday in a crowd that had gathered where an explosion moments earlier damaged a bus full of schoolgirls, with both blasts killing at least 31 people and wounding 71 others, officials said.
Also yesterday, a woman suicide bomber attacked a security checkpoint in downtown Baqouba, 55 kilometers northeast of Baghdad, killing five people including a local leader of Sunni group opposed to Al-Qaeda, police said.
Fifteen other people were wounded in that explosion.
The twin Baghdad blasts — the deadliest in the city in months — occurred moments apart during the morning rush hour in the mostly Shiite Kasrah section of the Azamiyah district in the northern part of the Iraqi capital.
Police said the first explosion damaged a minibus carrying young girls to school. The second happened when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt in the middle of a crowd that had gathered around the vehicle.
The blasts shattered storefronts along the crowded street and set more than a dozen cars on fire.
Associated Press Television News video showed the minibus pocked with shrapnel marks with the floor soaked in blood. Girls’ shoes were scattered about amid the wreckage.
