Bombs and gunfire ripped through the end of Ramadan here Thursday, killing at least 24 worshipers and Iraqi soldiers near two Shiite mosques in a worrisome reminder that the drop in violence in recent months can be shattered by successive explosions.
The blasts struck in the early morning of Eid al-Fitr, the feast that ends the holy month of fasting. Fourteen people, including three soldiers, were killed and 28 injured when a sedan blew up outside a mosque in the Zafaraniya neighborhood of southeastern Baghdad. A man wearing a bomb vest wrestled with a security guard before blowing himself up outside the Rasoul mosque in New Baghdad, killing 10 people and injuring nine.
A witness to the Zafaraniya attack, a vendor who gave his name only as Salaam, said that moments before the explosion he saw a car racing toward the mosque and an Iraqi armored vehicle parked near the entrance.
“I feel distressed,” said Salaam, who helped evacuate the injured to a hospital in a pickup truck. “Despite all the government assurances that the security situation is improved and Ramadan this year was safe … the situation is still bad.”
In other attacks around the country, six people, including two children, were killed in Diyala province when gunmen opened fire on a mini-bus in Kesaba village. An Interior Ministry worker was shot and killed in the southern city of Hillah.
