55 killed, 200 wounded as deadly car bombs rock Iraq

Main road leading to Baghdad International Airport has been closed Fifty-five Iraqis were killed and at least 200 others wounded in several car bomb attacks across Iraqi provinces, and the capital Baghdad on Monday. The blasts rocked the country just days before local elections, scheduled for April 20.A senior Iraqi Interior Ministry official told Arabstoday that 18 people had been killed, and 45 wounded in five separate bombing incidents in Baghdad, with the death toll likely to increase.
The source claimed that two explosions happened in the courtyard of the Abbas Ibn Firnas entrance to Baghdad International Airport, west of Baghdad. "Five people were killed and nine others injured because of the burning of a number of vehicles," the source added.
The government official explained that security forces had been deployed around the area of the explosion, and the main road leading to the airport had been closed. A separate car bomb exploded in the area of Karrada, central Baghdad, killing four people and injuring 13 others. Three other car bombs rocked Baghdad on Monday afternoon. A vehicle blew-up near the fifth police area, western Baghdad, killing four people and wounding eight others. In eastern Baghdad, three civillians were killed and eight wounded when a car bomb exploded in the Kamaliya area. Witnesses also claimed that an explosion in the area of Umm Maalif, western Baghdad, killed two people and injured seven others.
Security officials said that all five bomb blasts across Baghdad occurred within a 30-minute time frame, and the death told is expected to increase.
In Saladin province, 157km north of Baghdad, three cars exploded in Tuz Khormato, 90km north-east of Tikrit, killing and wounding 79 people in total. A police source in the city told Arabstoday that the three car bombs exploded simultaneously, killing 11 people and wounding 68 others.
Elsewhere, a police source from the Diyala province, 55km east of Baghdad, told Arabstoday that two people had been killed and six others were injured when a car bomb exploded near a popular market in the village of Jalali's Muqdadiya, 35km northeast of Baquba.
Meanwhile, a member of Iraq's Facilities Protection Service (FPS), locally identified as Hamid Daini was killed after a detonating device had been planted to his car in the village near Buhriz, 8km south of Baquba.
In Iraq's Dhi Qar province, 370km south of Baghdad, two separate car bombs targeted the industrial district and a market in Nasiriyah, killing eight people and wounding 14 civilians, a day before the visit of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to the region.
Security officials in Kirkuk, 250km north of Baghdad, told Arabstoday that three people had been killed and 15 others injured after two car bombs exploded simultaneously east of the city. A police officer said: "One of the car bombs exploded near the central square, northeast of Kirkuk on Monday morning, killing one person and wounding 10 others. Another car bomb exploded near the real estate registration office of Kirkuk, killing at least two and wounding five others."
In Babylon, 100 kilometers south of Baghdad, officials claimed that 26 people had been killed or wounded after two car bombs exploded in the southern and northern regions of the province. A mini-bus exploded near a vegetable shop in the city of Musayyib, 35km north of Babylon, on Monday morning, killing three and injuring 14 civilians, including three policemen whose injuries are thought to serious. One person was killed and 8 others injured after an explosion near a restaurant named Jawadain, in the Shomali, 55km south of Hilla.