Skip to main content
CNN.com International
The Web    CNN.com      Powered by
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ON TV
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
WORLD
Iraq Banner

Car bombs target churches in Iraq

At least 10 killed, 40 wounded in 5 blasts in Baghdad, Mosul


more videoVIDEO
CNN's Matthew Chance reports on bombings in central Baghdad.

Saddam sampling life behind bars

Powell: Kidnappings could deter support.

SPECIAL REPORT
• Interactive: Who's who in Iraq
• Interactive: Sectarian divide
YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS
Iraq
Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi insurgents targeted Christian worshippers attending Sunday evening services, setting off explosions near four churches in Baghdad and another in the northern city of Mosul.

Ten people were killed and more than 40 wounded in the attacks in Baghdad, according to the U.S. military. Iraqi police put the number of wounded at 46.

In Mosul, Iraqi Police Gen. Mohammad Kairi Barhawi said one person was killed and 11 wounded when a car bomb exploded outside a church as worshippers were leaving about 7 p.m. (11 a.m. ET).

Barhawi called the perpetrators "criminals and terrorists," and said Iraqis would remain unified against them.

Lt. Col. James Hutton, a spokesman for the U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry Division, said four explosions occurred Sunday evening in Baghdad -- two in the Karada district, east of the fortified Green Zone, and two in the southern neighborhoods of New Baghdad and Dura.

The largest was in Karada, in central Baghdad, where a car bomb exploded outside a church, leaving a crater more than 5 feet wide.

Karada has several churches for Iraq's Christian minority, which makes up about 3 percent of the country's population.

Police and emergency workers responding to the first blast, which occurred about 6 p.m. (10 a.m. ET), discovered a second car they suspected had been rigged as a bomb. The explosives in that vehicle detonated before it could be disarmed, they said.

Earlier bomb blasts Sunday killed four more people in Mosul and two in Baghdad, Iraqi police said.

Another car bomb in Mosul wounded 32 others when it exploded outside the Sumer police station in a Palestinian neighborhood, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

Also Sunday, a roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier in northern Iraq and wounded two others, the U.S. military announced. The death in the city of Samarra brings the number U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war to 914, with 678 from hostile action and 235 from nonhostile activity, according to the U.S. military.

Sunday's violence comes just days after at least 70 people were killed in Baquba, when a suicide bomber drove a minibus into a marketplace near a police station.

Truckers taken hostage

On Saturday, a group linked to terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi announced it has kidnapped two drivers working for a Turkish company supplying goods to U.S. forces in Iraq.

In a videotape broadcast on the Arabic-language Al-Jazeera network, the Unification and Jihad group said the company must stop its activities in Iraq within 48 hours or the militants will behead the two.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has acknowledged that the rash of kidnappings throughout Iraq could deter countries from participating in Iraq's reconstruction and security.

Powell made an unannounced visit to Iraq on Friday, arriving in Baghdad after stopping in Saudi Arabia, which has suggested a plan to send Muslim troops to Iraq. (Full story)

On Thursday, Al-Jazeera reported that a Somali truck driver had been kidnapped by Unification and Jihad.

The network reported the man works for a Kuwaiti company, which also was given a 48-hour ultimatum. There is no word on the fate of the Somali.

The group has taken responsibility for beheading U.S. businessman Nicholas Berg, South Korean translator Kim Sun-il and two Bulgarian truckers.

Another Turkish truck driver seized earlier in the month in Mosul has been freed, CNN Turk reported Saturday.

And captors of seven other truck drivers kidnapped in Iraq denied reports from the Kenyan government Sunday that the captives were being freed.

"This is not true," said Sheikh Hisham al-Dulemi, representing a group calling itself the Black Banners Brigades. "The negotiations are ongoing."

Al-Dulemi later pulled out of the negotiations, a well-placed source involved in the talks told CNN.

The hostages include three Kenyans, three Indians and an Egyptian. They were kidnapped July 21.

Insurgents attack military convoys

Insurgent attacks on three military convoys near the city of Falluja spurred firefights late Saturday and early Sunday in which at least 10 insurgents were killed, but no coalition troops were killed or wounded, according to the U.S. military.

The fighting northeast of Falluja included airstrikes against insurgent positions, the military said.

A spokesman with the Iraqi Health Ministry said at least 12 people were killed and 47 wounded, including noncombatant civilians, in the Falluja battles overnight.


Story Tools
Click Here to try 4 Free Trial Issues of Time! cover
Top Stories
Iran poll to go to run-off
Top Stories
EU 'crisis' after summit failure

CNN US
On CNN TV E-mail Services CNN Mobile CNN AvantGo CNNtext Ad info Preferences
SEARCH
   The Web    CNN.com     
Powered by
© 2005 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.
A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines. Contact us.
external link
All external sites will open in a new browser.
CNN.com does not endorse external sites.
 Premium content icon Denotes premium content.