Three car bombs explode in Iraqi city, killing 40 people

9/29/2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq Three suicide car bombs exploded nearly simultaneously today in a city north of Baghdad, killing 40 people and wounding many others, a hospital official said.

The attacks about 6:45 p.m., hit a bank, a vegetable market and another location in downtown Balad, a mostly Shiite city 50 miles north of the capital, witnesses said.

Dr. Khaled al-Azawi at Balad Hospital said 40 people died and scores were wounded, many of them seriously, with burns and mutilated limbs.

Earlier today, the military said a roadside bomb killed five American soldiers during combat in the western town of Ramadi, the deadliest single attack on U.S. troops in nearly two months.

Read more in later editions of The Blade and toledoblade.com.