Iraqi Bombings Kill Dozens, Wound More Than 200

BAGHDAD _ Four explosions struck Monday morning in Baghdad and the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, including three by female suicide bombers. At least 46 people were killed and more than 200 were wounded, security officials said.

In Baghdad, as hundreds of thousands of Shiite Muslim pilgrims walked toward the Kadhemiyah shrine a day before one of the holiest Shiite festivals, a series of what appeared to be coordinated attacks began at 7:15 with a homemade bomb that blasted nails and screws into a crowd of pilgrims who’d stopped to rest. A woman blew herself up minutes later; another blew herself up an hour later. Together, the Baghdad attacks killed at least 24 people and wounded 67.

Around 9 a.m. in Kirkuk, hundreds of thousands of Kurds who were protesting the passage of a provincial elections bill panicked when a woman in the crowd detonated an explosive belt, killing 22 people immediately and wounding around 150.

Panicked demonstrators ran away from the scene, toward the headquarters of the Iraqi Turkmen Front. Demonstrators burned that building to the ground, witnesses told McClatchy Newspapers. Gunmen had fired into the crowd from inside the building, said Najat Hassen, the head of the local branch of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

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