An explosion at a shop selling CDs killed 4 people in a town northeast of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. Police officials say a bomb hidden in a plastic bag exploded near the shop yesterday afternoon in the town of Qazaniyah. 11 people were wounded in the attack, and the shop was completely destroyed. Qazaniyah is 180 kilometers northeast of Baghdad.
A medic in a nearby hospital confirmed the death toll. All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to brief reporters.
Violence has ebbed in Iraq, but insurgent attacks are still frequent. The attack comes in the midst of growing political uncertainty.
Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani, who was working to ease tensions between Iraq’s Shiite Arab-led government and the Kurdish minority, suffered a stroke earlier this week and was flown to Germany for treatment. And on Thursday, Iraqi security forces arrested at least 10 guards assigned to the finance ministry, angering the Sunni minister and his political allies.
In the northern Kurdish region, Sunni Parliament speaker, Osama al-Nujaifi met with the leader of the self-ruled Kurdish region, Massoud Barzani in order to discuss their response to the growing crisis.
In a statement after their meeting, both sides expressed their discontent with the arrests, calling on the central government to take into consideration the “delicate period Iraq is going through.”