Car bomb kills 48 in Baghdad

Clashes erupt between police and residents after blast.

BAGHDAD: A car bomb exploded at a funeral wake in Iraq’s capital on Thursday, killing at least 48 people, wounding dozens and triggering clashes between angry residents and police, health and security sources said.

The blast capped a bloody two weeks as suspected insurgents challenge Iraq’s security forces ahead of the withdrawal this year of US troops and try to undermine the newly reappointed government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Witnesses said a suicide bomber struck a funeral tent packed with relatives and guests in Baghdad’s Shula district, a former stronghold of anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr but now thought to be controlled by a violent splinter group, Asaib al-Haq.

Deputy Health Minister Khamis al-Saad said 48 people were killed and 65 wounded, and a local hospital official gave the same death toll. An interior ministry source put the toll at 37 dead and 78 wounded.

Two other security sources said more than 45 people were killed and around 120 were wounded.

The funeral bomber struck as relatives and friends mourned at the home of an elderly man who died while on the pilgrimage to Karbala.

“According to what I see, it was not a parked car bomb. It looked like a suicide bomber, driving a car, entered the funeral and blew up the car,” said Ali al-Hilly of a neighbourhood council.

Armed clashes broke out in Shula, in northwest Baghdad, after the bomb blast, local officials and eyewitnesses said.

“People were angry after the explosion. They charged out into the streets to protest against the security forces,” said Nasser al-Sadi, the manager of Sadr’s office in Shula.

“The police opened fire against them or to disperse them and then some of the people responded by shooting back,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 28^th,  2011.