Baghdad curfew imposed following attacks
Baghdad's security is at its worst since the 2003 invasion
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Friday, 24, Nov 2006 07:09
An indefinite curfew was imposed upon the Iraqi capital Baghdad last night, following the worst day of violence in the city since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003.
At least 161 people were killed and 257 others wounded yesterday afternoon after a series of car bomb attacks rocked the Sadr City area of Baghdad, the city's largest Shia district.
The bombings came shortly after mortar fire began to break out at the Iraqi health ministry, which was the scene of a major gun battle after raiders attacked the Shia dominated government building in a daylight raid, before they were fended off by Iraqi guards and soldiers.
In apparent retaliation for the attacks, mortars were subsequently fired on Sunni neighbourhoods in Baghdad, with the Abu Hanifa mosque, the most important Sunni shrine in the city, badly damaged in the ensuing violence, the Associated Press reported.
Iraqi and US leaders have accused terror network al-Qaida and hardline loyalists of the former Baathist regime, which was led by deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, of carrying out the attacks on Sadr City, in order to provoke a Shia backlash.
Amid growing sectarian violence in Iraq, the country's prime minister Nouri Maliki, head of the US-backed unity government, appeared on television appealing for restraint in the aftermath of the attacks.
"We denounce sectarian practices that aim to destroy the unity of the nation," said Mr Maliki, as leading Shia, Sunni and Kurdish politicians made a joint appeal for calm in a separate news conference.
In addition to the curfew imposed on Baghdad in the wake of yesterday's violence, officials have also closed the city's airport, along with air and sea ports in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.
The latest bloodshed in Iraq comes after the United Nations revealed earlier this week that the number of Iraqi civilians killed in the country reached a record of over 3,700 in October.
Denouncing the latest attacks, a White House spokeswoman speaking on behalf of US president George W Bush, who is due to meet with Iraq's prime minister to discuss the country's security situation next week, said Washington condemned such "acts of senseless violence".
She added that the attacks were "clearly aimed at undermining the Iraqi people's hopes for a peaceful and stable Iraq".
British foreign secretary Margaret Beckett also said that she was "saddened to hear of further barbaric acts of terrorism in Baghdad".
Expressing sympathy for the relatives and friends of those killed in yesterday's violence, Ms Beckett added: "Such attacks only serve to show how little the terrorists have to offer the Iraqi people and the importance of building national reconciliation."