BAGHDAD, (Reuters) – Two car bombs on two bridges south of Baghdad killed 10 people and wounded 25 others on Friday in an apparent coordinated attack, police said.
Police said a truck bomb damaged the old Diyala Bridge and a nearby police station. Another police source said five policemen were among the dead.
Minutes later a few kilometres away, a car bomb exploded on the new Diyala Bridge. There were no immediate reports of damage on that bridge.
The two bridges over the Diyala River, a tributary of the Tigris, are commonly used by Shi’ite pilgrims on their way to the holy Shi’ite cities of Najaf and Kerbala to the south.
Suspected Sunni Arab insurgents have carried out attacks on bridges in Baghdad in recent weeks in a campaign U.S. and Iraqi officials say is aimed at damaging Iraq’s infrastructure.
Last month, a truck bomb destroyed the famed Sarafiya Bridge in Baghdad, sending several cars crashing into the Tigris. Days later a suicide car bomber blew himself up at a ramp leading to another bridge in Baghdad.
Politicians from both sides of the Shi’ite-Sunni sectarian divide have accused insurgents of trying to split the capital of seven million people along sectarian lines.
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