By DPA,
Baghdad: At least seven people were killed and 20 wounded Sunday when a powerful car bomb exploded in a crowded market in the western Iraqi province of al-Anbar, medical staff said.
The bombing targeted a market in the predominantly Sunni town of al-Haditha, roughly 250 kilometres north-east of Baghdad.
Four of the wounded were in critical condition, Walid al-Obeidi, manager of the al-Haditha General Hospital, told DPA.
The blast ripped the facades off nearby houses and shops, police in al-Haditha said, adding that they had imposed a vehicle ban in the area in an effort to prevent further attacks.
Earlier Sunday, in the central town of Hilla, a bomb exploded at the regional office of Speaker of the Parliament Mahmoud al-Mahshadani’s Islah Party, one of Iraq’s leading Sunni parties.
The party had opened its regional office only recently, and the blast, which happened before dawn, injured no one.
The attack on the party’s offices followed Saturday’s bombing near a Sunni mosque in Hilla that wounded two worshippers at dawn prayers. One of the wounded was a member of a Sunni, government-allied Sahwa, or “Awakening” militia.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for Saturday’s and Sunday’s attacks against Sunni targets.
On Friday, five consecutive bombings targeted Shia mosques in Baghdad, most of them connected to the movement of firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
At least 30 people were killed in those attacks and at least 100 others wounded, police said.