Five car bombs and two mortar rounds struck the capital's Shiite Sadr City slum Thursday, killing at least 157 people and injuring 247, police said.
Beginning at 3:10 p.m., three suicide car bombers blew up their vehicles one after another at 15-minute intervals in Sadr City, hitting the Jamila market, al-Hay market and al-Shahidein Square. At about the same time, two mortar rounds landed at al-Shahidein Square and Mudhaffar Square, police Col. Hassan Challoub said, according to the AP.
Two other parked cars packed with explosives also went off, one at the edge of Sadr City and another behind the main office of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, Challoub said.
Soon after the bombings, Shiite fighters launched 10 mortar rounds at the Sunnis' holiest shrine in Baghdad, the Abu Hanifa mosque in the Azamiya neighborhood, killing one person and injuring 14. Eight mortar rounds later slammed into the top Sunni organization in Iraq, the Association of Muslim Scholars, but caused no casualties, police said.
Following these events, the Iraqi government ordered a curfew in Baghdad beginning at 8 p.m. Thursday, saying all people and vehicles must stay off the streets of the city until further notice.
Earlier, five people were injured at the Health Ministry, about 5 km from Sadr City, an Interior Ministry source said, when some 30 armed men fired mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns into the compound. According to Reuters, An Interior Ministry source said gunmen had surrounded the ministry, north of central Baghdad on the mainly Shi'ite eastern bank of the Tigris, and clashed with Iraqi forces. Three mortar rounds landed in the ministry compound, he said.
The source said the gunmen had attempted to break into the ministry compound but had been driven back. State-run Iraqiyah television said the Health Ministry was being attacked with mortars by "terrorists who are intending to take control of the building."
Iraqi troops were being rushed to the area and all roads leading to the ministry in Bab al-Muadham neighborhood were closed, the AP reported.
