{"id":3579,"date":"2014-04-26T05:54:28","date_gmt":"2014-04-26T05:54:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wp3\/?p=3579"},"modified":"2014-04-26T05:54:28","modified_gmt":"2014-04-26T05:54:28","slug":"dozens-killed-as-blasts-hit-iraq-poll-rally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sunnionline.us\/english\/2014\/04\/26\/3579\/","title":{"rendered":"Dozens killed as blasts hit Iraq poll rally"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"images\/stories\/news3\/iraq-blast-013.jpg\" border=\"0\" style=\"float: right; margin: 5px;\" \/>A series of bombs has exploded at a campaign rally for a Shia group in Iraq&#8217;s capital ahead of the country&#8217;s parliamentary election, killing at least 37 people and wounding scores others, police said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>  <!--more-->  <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Friday\u2019s explosions struck as some 10,000 people gathered at the Industrial Stadium in eastern Baghdad for a rally of the Asaib Ahl al-Haq group. The Shia group had planned to announce at the rally its candidates for Iraq&#8217;s parliamentary election on Wednesday.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Police and medical officials said several of the wounded were in critical condition. They spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to release the information.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Followers of Asaib Ahl al-Haq carried out deadly attacks against US troops before their withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 and claimed responsibility for the 2007 kidnapping of a British contractor along with his four guards.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The group is backed by Iran and says it is sending fighters to Syria.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Its leader, Sheik Qais al-Khazali, spent years in US detention but was released after he was handed over to the Iraqi government. At the rally on Friday, he gave a brief address that challenged the Sunni fighters holding two cities in Anbar province.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Sectarian violence<\/strong><\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Security guards jumped on Khazali and pushed him away from the stadium after the blasts.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The blasts highlight the sectarian violence that has plagued Iraq recently.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Last year, the death toll in the country climbed to its highest levels since the worst of the country&#8217;s sectarian bloodletting between 2006 and 2008.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The UN said 8,868 people were killed in 2013, and more than 1,400 people were killed in the first two months of this year alone.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, though an al-Qaeda spin-off group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant uses similar tactics.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The group and other Sunni fighters frequently use car bombs and suicide attacks to target public areas and government buildings in their bid to undermine confidence in the Shiite-led government and target Shia groups.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">More than 9,000 candidates are taking part in Wednesday&#8217;s elections and will vie for 328 seats in parliament.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Parts of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province won&#8217;t take part in the election due the clashes there between security forces and al-Qaeda-inspired fighters.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Source: <em><strong>Al Jazeera<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A series of bombs has exploded at a campaign rally for a Shia group in Iraq&#8217;s capital ahead of the country&#8217;s parliamentary election, killing at least 37 people and wounding scores others, police said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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