ASSAULT ON IRAQ MINISTRY: 18 DEAD IN BLASTS
BAGHDAD, March 15, 2013 (AFP) - A co-ordinated string of bombings and a brazen assault on a ministry near Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone have killed 18 people, adding to the 120,000 Iraq war victims tallied in a new study.
The conflict has cost the lives of at least 116,000 Iraqi civilians and more than 4,800 coalition troops between the outbreak of war in 2003 and the US withdrawal
The conflict has cost the lives of at least 116,000 Iraqi civilians and more than 4,800 coalition troops
in 2011, US researchers estimated on Friday.
Thursday's attacks, which drew condemnation from the US, UN and Iraq's parliament speaker, come just days before the 10th anniversary of the US-led invasion, and with barely a month to go before the country holds its first elections in three years.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the violence, but Sunni militants including those linked to Al-Qaeda often target government officials and offices in a bid to destabilise Iraq.
At least three bombs exploded in Allawi neighbourhood, near the foreign and culture ministries and offices of the communications ministry, at about 1:30 pm, officials and witnesses said. At around the same time, militants staged an apparently unsuccessful assault on the nearby justice ministry.
Overall, 18 people were killed and at least 30 wounded in the attacks, an interior ministry official and a medical source said.