BAGHDAD: A suicide bomber rammed his car into a bus carrying Iranian Shiites in Iraq yesterday, killing at least nine people in an attack likely carried out by insurgents trying to ignite sectarian conflict.
Police said that in yesterday’s attack in Muqdadiya, 80 km northeast of Baghdad, the bomber targeted a convoy of three buses carrying Iranians, who often visit Iraq’s Shiite shrines in the south of the country. At least nine people were killed and 27 wounded, according to police.
“When the buses passed, a white car driving very fast came out of an alley way and hit the second bus, and I saw that bus burst into flames,” said Ahmed Ferhan, an Iraqi man injured in the blasts.
An official with Iran’s Haj and Pilgrimage Organization told the semi-official Fars news agency that based on preliminary information, 16 Iranians had been killed and 44 wounded in the attack.
Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in attacks in Iraq since April, the highest toll in five years, in surging violence that could tip the country back into all-out inter-communal war.
9 dead as Iraq bomber hits Iranians
