Baghdad bomb blasts kill 128 on 08/12/2009

BAGHDAD: A wave of violent chaos engulfed Iraq’s capital yesterday as a series of co-ordinated bombs, including at least two suicide attacks, struck the city, killing at least 128 people and wounding as many as 513 others.



Four explosions hit Baghdad within the space of a few minutes, all close to government buildings. An hour earlier, a suicide car bomb detonated near a police patrol in the southern neighbourhood of Doura.

The attacks, the worst since October 25 when two car bombs killed 155, further called into question the government’s ability to protect its citizens and prompted angry complaints about failures by the police and army.



“We have already sent a formal message to Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki saying that the current security plan has failed,” Hadi al Amri, the head of the Iraqi parliament’s security commission, said. “It is clear that we need a new security plan.

“There have been consistent warnings that government and civilian targets will be increasingly attacked in the run-up to the national elections, but insufficient action has been taken to stop those attacks.”



Rahul Vallamber
www.stopterrorism.co.in

Twin blasts in ISI office in Pakistan's Punjab province (08/12/09)

Islamabad, Dec 8 (PTI) Two blasts ripped through an ISI office within Multan cantonment in Pakistan's Punjab province today, injuring several people.

The first blast occurred shortly before noon and was followed soon by a more powerful explosion, witnesses said.

Military police cordoned off the area and prevented people and the media from approaching the site of the blast.

Zafar Ahir, an editor of Jang newspaper who witnessed the blasts, said the target of the attack was an ISI office.

"More than half of the ISI office has been destroyed.

I saw the building blow up," he told Geo News channel.

Several injured persons were taken by ambulances to nearby hospitals, where authorities declared an emergency.

? ? Geo News aired mobile phone footage shot by a passer-by which showed the facade of one building was completely destroyed by the blasts.

Several nearby buildings were also damaged.


www.stopterrorism.co.in
rahul vallamber