5th Update///Baghdad’s deadly blasts leave 535 casualties

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: The death toll from the two car bomb blasts near the government buildings in Baghdad rose to 75 and the wounded to 460, a police source said. “The final toll of the two deadly explosions in Baghdad is 75 and 460 wounded, all civilians from the justice ministry and the Baghdad council’s employees in al-Salhiyah region in central Baghdad,” the source told IraqiNews.com news agency. “Health Minister Saleh al-Hasnawi called on the wounded in a number of Baghdad’s hospital,” the health ministry said in a statement received by IraqiNews.com news agency. The statement did not specify the number of casualties. “Employees of the nearby government offices were wounded when the windowpanes were smashed and ceilings destroyed by the powerful explosions,” a police source said earlier. “The wounded were rushed by ambulances and civilian vehicles to the hospitals of al-Kindi, al-Yarmuk and Ibn al-Nafis,” he said. He added that the two explosions set a large number of civilian vehicles ablaze, including some that had passengers aboard. “They are targeting the government and the political process in the country,” Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta, spokesman for the Baghdad Operations Command (BOC), said. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki toured the blast sites later in the day. A U.S. embassy source had said two explosions, probably two car bombs, occurred near the Iranian embassy in Baghdad, prompting the nearby U.S. embassy to announce a state of emergency as sirens wailed and the staff ran to hideouts lest other explosions should take place. A series of coordinated attacks struck key government organizations, one of them near the green zone on August 19, leaving more than 100 people killed and more than one thousand others wounded. Nouri al-Maliki later on sent a message to the UN Secretary General and the UN Security Council demanding the “formation of an international panel to investigate the assaults”. The central Baghdad’s heavily-fortified zone is home to the Iraqi government offices, the headquarters of the Iraqi parliament and the U.S. embassy compound and the British embassy. SH (S) 1