Dozens killed in hospital blast

By Sami al-Jumaili in Mahmoudiya, Iraq
November 25, 2005

A SUICIDE car bomber has attacked a hospital south of Baghdad, killing 34 people and wounding dozens more as militants stepped up their campaign of violence before elections next month.

The explosives-packed car detonated as Iraqi security forces were gathered outside Mahmoudiya General Hospital and as US civil affairs soldiers were visiting the facility to look at ways to improve it, the US army and witnesses said.
Another car bomb exploded near a crowded market in Hilla, 100 km south of Baghdad, killing up to four people, police said.

In the Mahmoudiya blast, four US troops were wounded, but most of those killed and injured were civilians.

Police said one of those killed in Mahmoudiya may have been the secretary-general of the Iraqi Workers Party, a member of the Iraqi Parliament.

The bombings are the latest in a series of suicide attacks and car bomb blasts that have killed nearly 200 people since last Friday, in what appears to be an increase in violence by insurgents ahead of Parliamentary elections on December 15.


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A little known group called "The Supporters for the Sunni Community" claimed the Hilla attack, an internet statement said.
The head of the emergency room at the hospital said the Mahmoudiya blast killed 34 people, including seven policemen, three Iraqi soldiers, a doctor and five medical staff. Most of the 39 people wounded were civilians.

The US military said the hospital had been the target of the suicide attack, but the bomber had failed to penetrate its security barriers. The building's facade had minor damage and three nearby houses were badly hit.

Many of the recent attacks in Iraq have been sectarian, with Sunni Arab militants targeting Shiite Muslim communities.

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