BAGHDAD – Twelve people were killed yesterday when gunmen detonated a bomb outside Iraq’s central bank and battled with security forces from the rooftops, in what officials said could have been a raid on the bank’s vaults.
At least one bomb, and perhaps as many as four, exploded as bank employees were leaving work, sending a thick plume of smoke over Baghdad after setting the bank’s generator on fire.
Troops and police came under fire as they surrounded the bank in case the bombing was part of a plan to rob the institution, said Baghdad security spokesman Maj Gen Qassim al-Moussawi. “It’s not clear to us whether this was a robbery or an attempt to cause destruction,” said Maj Gen Moussawi. “But we can definitely say they targeted the central bank.”
Police and interior ministry sources said 12 died and at least 22 were wounded in the blast and subsequent gunfight.
Recent weeks have seen a spurt of deadly gold market robberies and attacks by suspected Sunni Islamist insurgents, as tensions simmer following an inconclusive election in March that produced no outright winner.
Many of the groups that took up arms after the 2003 US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein have turned to crime as the sectarian war and al Qaeda-led insurgency have faded. Gunmen killed 14 people on May 25th in a raid on Baghdad goldsmiths and three on June 9th in an attack on a gold market in southern Basra.
A bank official said the attackers did not gain entry to the central bank’s main building but were driven to the rooftops of neighbouring buildings within its fortified compound. Local television said they were all killed by troops and police.
Overall violence in Iraq has fallen sharply since the height of sectarian bloodshed in 2006-2007. – (Reuters)