Suicide Car Bomb Rocks Baghdad
19th Jan 2005
Two almost simultaneous suicide car bomb blasts have rocked Baghdad, killing at least eight people.
A car bomb exploded outside the cement blast barriers of the Australian Embassy in Baghdad around 7.10am (0410 GMT) killing two people and injuring four.
A second blast about 30 minutes later targeted a police station in the Iraqi capital, killing at least six people and wounding dozens others.
Rebels have mounted a series of deadly attacks across Iraq ahead of elections due on 30 January.
"No Australian personnel have been injured," an Australian foreign affairs spokeswoman said in Australia's capital, Canberra.
The spokeswoman said no damage had been done to the Australian embassy and there was no information at this stage that the embassy was specifically targeted. However, the force of the blast had blown out the windows in the residences of the embassy staff.
The second blast happened near the Iraqi police station in Baghdad's eastern Elwiyah district.
In the embassy attack, the car exploded near the embassy's cement blast barriers around 7.10am in a blast that rocked the centre of the city. US troops and tanks sealed off the area, which was strewn with flaming wreckage.
A policeman on the scene, who refused to give his name, told The Associated Press that at least two people were killed and four wounded in the embassy attack. He didn't give the nationalities of the victims.
Witnesses said two dead bodies were taken away, one of them being a young sanitation worker who had just stepped outside of his truck when the bomb exploded.
The blast knocked out windows in the surrounding neighbourhood and the exploded car was contorted into scraps of
metal.
