Blast outside Baghdad bank kills 15

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Fifteen people were killed and more
than 30 wounded in Baghdad on Monday when a blast ripped
through a crowd of people queuing up outside a bank, the Iraqi
police and U.S. military said.

The police said Iraqis were waiting to collect compensation
for food rations the government had failed to distribute last
year when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt.

The U.S. military said the blast was caused by a roadside
bomb planted near the busy bank.

“Initial reports indicate that up to 15 local nationals
were killed and approximately 30 were wounded when the roadside
bomb containing ball bearings detonated,” it said in a
statement.

Police, firefighters and ambulance crews rushed to the
scene in the eastern New Baghdad district of the capital, it
said.

Largely Sunni Arab insurgents have mounted a campaign of
bombings to derail the U.S.-backed political process since
shortly after the U.S. invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

It was not clear why a bomber would target the bank
distributing compensation. Since Saddam’s day, the Iraqi state
has handed out monthly rations of sugar, rice, cooking fat,
detergents and other basic goods to all Iraqis and poorer
families depend on them in a country with soaring unemployment.