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Iraq interior ministry hit by suicide car bomber | |
(40 minutes later) | |
At least six people have been killed in a suicide car bomb attack outside Iraq's interior ministry. | |
At least 27 others were also injured in the attack, which officials say happened at about 04:30 GMT. | |
On Thursday, a series of bombings killed nearly 70 people in the capital. | On Thursday, a series of bombings killed nearly 70 people in the capital. |
The attacks follow the withdrawal of the last US combat troops from the country after nearly nine years of military engagement. | The attacks follow the withdrawal of the last US combat troops from the country after nearly nine years of military engagement. |
The attacker rammed his explosive-laden car through the main gate when interior ministry officials opened it to allow maintenance workers in, a ministry official was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency. | |
Ambulances could be heard rushing to the scene of the attack, as helicopters flew overhead. | |
"When I went outside I found my colleagues, some of them were killed, others were on the ground, many cars were burned," Zaid Raheem, a police guard, told the Reuters news agency. | |
The renewed violence comes as Iraq's year-old power-sharing government is in turmoil after an arrest warrant was issued for Sunni Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi on terror charges - accusations he denies. | |
The entire al-Iraqiyya group, the main Sunni bloc in parliament, is boycotting the assembly in protest. It accuses Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, a Shia, of monopolising power. | |
Mr Hashemi is currently in Irbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, under the protection of the regional government, but Mr Maliki has demanded that they give him up. |