At least 63 killed in Iraq in double suicide bombings

BAGHDAD, Iraq – The man looked suspicious.

Without speaking a word, police officer Ahmed Eid Majood, manning one of the entrances to the bazaar in the southern Iraqi city of Hilla, lunged toward him and wrapped his arms around the suicide bomber’s body.

The man detonated a belt packed with explosives Thursday afternoon, killing the officer and dozens of other people, a police spokesman said, and sending a throng of shoppers at the covered market rushing toward another exit.

There, a second attacker detonated his bomb, laced with nails and shreds of metal, killing far more people than the first, Capt. Muthana Ahmed said.

The bombers killed at least 63 people and injured more than 150, but Ahmed and hospital officials said the death toll could rise because many of the injuries being treated Thursday night were life-threatening. More than 40 Iraqi civilians and police died Thursday in other violence around the country, officials said.

The twin bombings in Hillah were the latest mass killing of Shiite Muslims in recent weeks, raising the possibility that Shiite militias would increase their retaliatory attacks against Sunnis. The U.S. and Iraqi governments are in the early stages of a new security plan intended to pacify Baghdad and some other parts of the country.

In Hillah, “people were going up and down the market as usual,” said Mohammed Sa’aid, 39, who was working in his sweets shop. “Suddenly there was thunder and lightning and corpses were everywhere and people were cut into pieces.”

The explosions came about a minute apart, police and witnesses said. They shattered windows and destroyed dozens of small shops that dot the marketplace near the Euphrates River.

Hillah is one of the least scarred cities in the country. The bazaar has been targeted twice before, by a suicide bomber and an improvised explosive device, each attack killing a handful of people.

Dozens of wounded were taken to nearby Hillah Hospital, where doctors improvised additional operating rooms. Scores of seriously injured people were turned away to give priority to those in more dire condition.

“We are prepared, but not for such an amount of patients,” said Talib Ali, a doctor at the hospital. “We had to call doctors who are on vacation and those who had already left for their houses.”

Outbursts of violence broke out at the entrance to the hospital, as police clashed with survivors and relatives struggling to get into the seven-story building, witnesses and medical personnel said.

“Most of the wounded are in critical condition, and it’s possible that many of them will die,” the doctor said. “We have a shortage of bandages, and some of the wounds are being cleaned with Kleenex.”

Ali Dabagh, a spokesman for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said Thursday that Iraq will host a regional security conference next month that will include Syria and Iran – two neighboring countries with which the United States has declined to engage as part of its diplomatic and military efforts to secure and stabilize Iraq.

Other attacks were reported Thursday in various parts of the country. A car bomb exploded near the entrance of the law school at Salahadin University in the city of Tikrit, killing seven and wounding 23, according to Saad Salman, an Interior Ministry spokesman.

In Baghdad, a bomb was detonated inside a small bus in the commercial Karrada area, killing eight people and wounding 12.