Posted on 02/28/2007 7:36:57 AM PST by tobyhill
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A car bomb exploded Wednesday near a market in southwestern Baghdad, killing at least 10 people and wounding 21 others, an Iraqi emergency police official said.
The blast struck the capital's Bayaa neighborhood. Authorities said the death toll is expected to rise.
"People were in a state of panic. There was a lot of blood on the ground, and we helped carrying the wounded to the ambulances," Shiite Muslim shopkeeper Imad Jassim told The Associated Press.
In a later attack, a suicide car bomb exploded outside the Bab al-Sheik police station in central Baghdad, killing two people and wounding three others. One of the dead and two of the wounded were police officers.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
An Iraqi security adviser said that the incident may have been confused with a Monday blast in the same area.
Coalition spokesman Rear Adm. Mark I. Fox on Wednesday called the report of 18 deaths "erroneous" and reiterated previous U.S. military assertions that the only explosion in Ramadi on Tuesday was administered by coalition troops in a controlled setting.
The detonation in the southeast part of the city was much larger than anticipated and a few dozen people received injuries, none life-threatening, Fox said.
The report of 18 boys killed was first aired Tuesday on Iraqi state TV. The Iraqi Interior Ministry later told CNN it had confirmed the blast on the western outskirts of Ramadi, and Iraq's president, prime minister and foreign minister quickly denounced the attack.
The U.S. military initially said it could not confirm the incident.
Col. Tariq al-Theibani, Iraqi security adviser for Anbar province, said Wednesday that a parked minibus -- packed with wood and dynamite -- detonated Monday, not Tuesday, near an open area that children use as a soccer field. The blast occurred in the southeast Ramadi area, he said.
Eighteen people were killed and 35 others were wounded, some critically, al-Theibani said. Women, children and police officers were reportedly among the casualties.
Why post ANY CNN crap??? We need to wait at least three days and have other sources first.
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