Laborers were killed
On Tuesday, at least 57 poor laborers were killed by a suicide bomber in Baghdad where a crowd of day laborers (like carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers, paiters) were waiting for their job. 151 people were wounded in the blast after the bomber lured a crowd of day laborers to his vehicle with the promise of work.
Bilal Ali, a police, said that the attack in Tayaran square at 7 am involved a parked car bomb and a suicide attacker who drove up in a minibus, pretended to hire day labourers, then set off his explosive as they got into his vehicle. A witness said that a driver with a pick up truck stopped and asked for laborers and the car exploded when they gathered around it.
Mr.Ali said that at least 57 iraqis, including seven pilicemen, were killed in the attack and 151 people wounded. This explotion occured about 30 metres apart, shattered windows in store fronts, left crafters and blood strains in the road, and set fire to least 10 other cars. Khalil Ibrahim, a shop owner, said that in the first explosion, he saw people falling over, when the other bomb went off seconds later, it slammed him into a wall of his store and he had fainted.
When the attack occured, the police at a nearby checkpoint fired random shots in several directions, but residents soon rushed to the devastated area to see whether their friends or relatives had been killed. Mangled bodies were piled up on the road side. Shi’ite PM Nuri al-Maliki blamed it on Saddam Hussein sympathisers and Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda.
