Suicide attack kills 18, injures 80 in Baghdad

BAGHDAD: A suicide bomber killed at least 18 people and wounded 80 others near an Iraqi Interior Ministry building in central Baghdad on Tuesday, ministry officials said.

Many of those injured or killed in the vehicle-borne explosion at a ministry forensics office in Baghdad’s Karrada neighborhood were police, the ministry official said.
After the attacks, ambulances and firefighters rushed to the scene. The ministry building suffered major damage, a Reuters photographer reported.
The bombing came a day after a trio of suicide attacks on well-known Baghdad hotels, two of them hubs for western visitors and journalists in Iraq, killed at least 36 people.
The coordinated bombings, which shattered a seven-week lull in major assaults on government and other supposedly secure targets, fuels tension before Iraq’s March 7 parliamentary elections.
Such attacks may present a setback to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who is seeking a second term, and other incumbents who hope voters will credit them for the sharp reduction in violence in Iraq over the past two years.

source: Agencies