At least 24 killed in Baghdad car bombings

Iraqi men look at a destroyed truck after a suicide bomb attack against police today. REUTERS/Ceerwan Aziz.

Iraqi men look at a destroyed truck after a suicide bomb attack against police today. REUTERS/Ceerwan Aziz.

At least 24 people have been killed in three separate suicide bombings in the Iraqi capital this morning.

In the latest attacks, two bombers struck one minute apart, killing at least nine special forces soldiers and police officers in the southern Baghdad district of Doura.

Hours earlier, 15 people were killed in an attack in the same district. The dead include 10 policemen. It is understood the first bomb destroyed a lorry carrying the policemen.

This morning's attacks come only a day after several attacks in the city left as many as 160 dead.

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More than a dozen bombs shook the capital in a series of apparently co-ordinated blasts that started at dawn yesterday.

A suicide bomber lured a crowd of Shia day labourers to his minivan before blowing it up, killing 114 and wounding more than 156 in Baghdad's old town.

The bomber drew the men to his vehicle with promises of work before detonating the bomb, which contained up to 500 pounds of explosives, an Interior Ministry source said. It was the second deadliest single attack since the US-led invasion of March 2003.

Another car bomber blew himself up in northern Baghdad, killing 11 people lined up to refill gas cannisters. Gunmen also dragged 17 people from their homes and killed them in Taji, a northern suburb.

Most of the victims of yesterday's attacks were Shias.