Four Car Bombs Explode in Central Baghdad, Killing 17

By JOHN F. BURNS and JAMES GLANZ
Published: June 24, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 23 - Four car bombs exploded in a central Baghdad commercial district early Thursday morning, spewing shattered glass and bits of human skin over the streets while killing at least 17 people. The bombings raised the toll in the capital to at least 43 dead and 100 wounded in a string of similar attacks that began Wednesday night.

The car bombs blew up in quick succession outside two Shiite mosques, next to a police patrol near a gas station and adjacent to an old supermarket in the Karrada neighborhood, an Interior Ministry official said. On a day when dust storms left a stifling gray pall over the city, the stench of the fires and human remains in Karrada was overwhelming.

Shortly after the thud of the explosions, which from a distance sounded like a volley of shells dropped from some great bomb bay, a woman named Um Ahmed frantically searched for her son, Ahmed, who tended a small cosmetics stand in the area. 'No one knows where my son is?' Um Ahmed said. 'He sets off to work at 6 a.m. He is only 8.'"