Two explosions kill 16 in Baghdad

IRAQ: Bombs targeting Shiite worshippers as they left morning prayers Thursday at two Baghdad mosques killed 16 people and injured more than 30 others, police said.

The attacks occurred as the worshippers were celebrating the holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. In the deadliest attack, a suicide car bomber in a Mercedes sedan detonated his explosives about 20 yards (meters) from a mosque in Zafaraniyah in southeastern Baghdad. He set off the bomb when Iraqi soldiers tried to stop him from approaching the building, police said. That attack killed 12 people, including three soldiers, and injured 23, police said. In the other attack, a roadside bomb killed four people as worshippers were leaving the Rasoul mosque in the capital’s eastern New Baghdad district. Nine people were injured.

Baghdad, Thursday, AP