Bus Blast Kills 7, Wounds 15 in Baghdad
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A bomb struck a small bus carrying people to work in a predominantly Shiite area in Baghdad on Sunday, killing seven passengers and wounding 15, police said.
The minivan was ferrying passengers from Baghdad's Bab al-Sharqi area to the central commercial district of Karradah when the explosion occurred at 8:15 a.m., shattering the windows of nearby stores.
The bomb was left in a bag by somebody who got off the bus, police said, giving the casualty toll.
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Sirens wailed as police and ambulances rushed to the area, and people pulled the badly burned bodies from the charred bus.
Faris Mahdi, who works at a cell phone store near the site of the blast, said he and his colleagues tried to help the victims.
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"We had just arrived to open our shop when we heard the sound of a big explosion and saw a fire in a small bus," Mahdi, 36, said. "We ran because the ambulances hadn't arrived yet. We pulled out three charred bodies, and badly injured people were taken to the hospital by a pickup car."
About 45 minutes later, a parked car bomb exploded outside a restaurant in eastern Baghdad, killing one person and wounding five others, according to police.