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    January 05, 2012

Multiple Bombings Strike Baghdad

   VOA News
   Iraqis look inside a bus damaged from shrapnel after a booby-trapped
   motorcycle exploded near a group of day laborers waiting to pick up
   work in the Shiite district of Sadr City, January 5, 2012.
   Photo: AFP
   Iraqis look inside a bus damaged from shrapnel after a booby-trapped
   motorcycle exploded near a group of day laborers waiting to pick up
   work in the Shiite district of Sadr City, January 5, 2012.

   Iraqi officials say multiple bombs have exploded in Shi'ite areas of
   the capital, Baghdad, killing at least 27 people and wounding more than
   60 others.
   The blasts Thursday first hit the northern neighborhood of Sadr City.
   Officials say a bomb planted in a motorcycle exploded near a group of
   laborers who had gathered to seek work, followed by a roadside bombing
   a short time later. The explosions killed 12 people.
   Then in Kazimiyah, another Shi'ite area in northern Baghdad, a pair of
   car bombings killed 15 people.
   The violence Thursday come two weeks after a string of bombings killed
   at least 69 people across the capital. Those attacks followed the
   withdrawal of the last U.S. troops from Iraq amid increased political
   tensions in the country.

   Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led government issued an
   arrest warrant last month for Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi,
   who has denied charges that he ran a death squad and has fled to the
   Kurdish north to avoid detention.
   The Sunni-backed Iraqiya coalition has boycotted parliament and the
   Cabinet, with leaders of the country's Sunni minority complaining that
   Maliki is monopolizing power in the hands of Shi'ites and excluding
   Sunnis from decision-making.

   Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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