Baquba blast toll climbs
The toll in Wednesday’s car bomb blast in the Iraqi town of Baquba has climbed to 70 dead and 90 injured. The attack was the deadliest since the interim government was installed late last month.
The majority of those injured are in a serious condition, reported Aljazeera’s correspondent Abd al-Adhim Muhammad.
Iraq’s health ministry confirmed on Thursday that 70 people were killed in the blast. A car packed with explosives detonated in a marketplace in Baquba, some 65km north of Baghdad, near a police station.
Many among those killed were passengers in a minibus which happened to be nearby.
There were also victims among policemen and new police recruits who had queued up nearby.
The police station in the centre of the city had come under a previous car bomb attack three months ago. The station building itself, protected by thick blast walls, was not damaged.