Baghdad hit by deadly triple blasts !

Baghdad hit by deadly triple blasts !

The explosions in Baghdad on Sunday were the first to shake the capital in recent weeks [AFP] Three deadly bombings in the Iraqi capital Baghdad have killed at least 30 people and wounded 224 others, police sources told Al Jazeera. Smoke could be seen rising into the sky above Baghdad on Sunday, as helicopters circled overhead. Gunfire could also be heard echoing across the city. Police sources said all three blasts were car bombs set off by suicide attackers, one of which went off near the Iranian embassy. Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, reporting from Baghdad, said the attacks occured only minutes apart. "The first [explosion] was approximately at 11:10 (8:10GMT) ... they seem to have been co-ordinated explosions," she said. "The roads leading to the Baghdad governorate has been sealed off." Major General Qassim al-Moussawi, an Iraqi security forces spokesman, told Al Jazeera that two of those bombings occurred in Baghdad's Mansour district, in the west of the capital, while the third explosion occurred in Salhiya district, near the Iranian embassy. Al-Moussawi later said on local television that the attacks were aimed at the Egyptian and Iranian embassies, adding that the third may have targeted the residence of the German ambassador. Calm broken Hasan Kazemi Qomi, the Iranian ambassador, said it wasn't clear his embassy was a target in the attacks, though. "The explosion happened at the embassy gate, targeting visitors and Iraqi police," he told the AP news service. "There was some damage to the embassy building but no employees were harmed inside." The blasts on Sunday were the first major explosions to shake the capital in recent weeks, following Iraq's election on March 7. However, an attack in the early hours of Saturday left 25 people deadin the village of Albusaifi just to the south of the capital, while mortars were fired on the heavily fortified green zone later in the day. Al-Moussawi said some of the victims in village attack were members of the Iraqi security forces, others were part of local Awakening Councils or Sahwa, which are comprised of Sunni fighters who allied with US forces to combat al-Qaeda in Iraq. The fresh wave of attacks in and around the capital come at a time of political uncertaintyfor the country, as no clear winner has yet emerged from last month's elections. Security officials have warned that a lengthy period of political wrangling could give way to renewed instability. "This has been the real fear, the very fact that the security situation could destabilise simply because of the political negoations taking place to form a new Iraqi government," Khodr said.

Source:Al Jazeera and agencies /

Bulgaria Today