06 April,2009 02:48 PM IST | | AFP
A series of rush-hour car bombings in Baghdad killed at least 18 people and wounded 58 others today, law enforcement officials said.
Ten people were killed and 28 injured when a booby-trapped car exploded in a market area of the impoverished Shiite district of Sadr City in northeastern Baghdad, an interior official said.
In the central Allawi district of the capital, four people were killed and 15 others were wounded in another car bombing. Most victims were workers who were waiting for job assignments, a defence ministry official said.
A car bomb targeting the convoy of a senior interior ministry official killed one civilian and a policeman and injured six other policemen in the southeastern neighbourhood of New Baghdad.
The official, a brigadier general whose name was given as Sadun, was unhurt.
In Hussainiya, in Baghdad's far northeast, two people were killed and nine were wounded when a vehicle exploded near a market.
Security has improved dramatically since 2007, when Iraqi and US forces launched offensives against Al-Qaeda militants with the help of local US-financed and trained militias.
However, insurgents are still able to strike with deadly results. A total of 252 Iraqis were killed in violence in March, almost the same level as the previous month.
