Cars packed with explosives and roadside bombs killed 15 people in Baghdad on Sunday in what officials said appeared to be an attack targeting Iraq’s central bank by militants who wanted to rob it.
A series of six bombs detonated in a marketplace near the central bank within eight minutes, suggesting a coordinated attack, a Baghdad police officer and an interior ministry official said. The bombs sent black smoke into the air as ambulance sirens screamed on the way to the scene.
Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, a spokesman for Baghdad’s military operations, said the bombings were the work of a terrorist operation that sought to rob the Central Bank of Iraq.
At least 15 were killed and 43 injured by four roadside bombs and two others inside parked cars.
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Medvedev dismisses Putin’s ally
Moscow : Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has dismissed a close ally of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as head of a state arms agency, the Kremlin said on Sunday without giving a reason.
Mr Medvedev, who has made tentative moves to assert his independence from Mr Putin in recent months, signed an order to dismiss Viktor Cherkesov as head of the Federal Arms Procurement Agency, the Kremlin said in a statement.
Mr Cherkesov was deputy head of the FSB, the main successor organisation to the KGB, in the late 1990s when Mr Putin led the service. —Reuters