Blasts Kill 22 at Iraq Cafes

Local Editor

Bombs exploded in busy coffee shops and at other targets across Iraq late on Thursday, killing at least 22 people, police and medics said.

In north and south Baghdad, two blasts tore through cafes where scores of young men had gathered to watch a televised football match, killing eight people, police and medical sources said.

Two other explosions killed 10 people in coffee shops in the city of Baquba, about 30 miles northeast of Baghdad, police said.

Another bomb exploded near a cafe in the town of Jbela, 40 miles south of Baghdad, killing three.

In Baquba, one of Iraq's most violent cities, a car bomb went off near a cafe in the center of the city and, when passers-by rushed to help the casualties, the attackers detonated a second bomb.

Also on Thursday evening, in Baghdad's neighborhood of Adhamiyah, an explosion near another cafe killed four people and wounded 14. Two blasts in the town of Jbela, south of the capital, wounded three.
Elsewhere in Baghdad, separate attacks killed a barber and wounded nine other people ached to a car killed a civilian in Iskandariya, 25 miles south of Baghdad, police said.

Violence has grown in Iraq since the start of the year, claiming more than 1,000 people in May alone according to UN, making it the deadliest month since the bloodletting of 2006-07.

The latest bombs struck as Iraqis celebrated moves by the UN Security Council towards ending sanctions imposed on Baghdad more than two decades ago after former President Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team