At least one killed in Baghdad explosion: police source

 

BAGHDAD: At least one person was killed and six were wounded when a parked car exploded in Baghdad’s Sadr City district on Wednesday, an Iraqi police source said.

A ministry spokesman said in a brief statement the blast was the result of the detonation of an ammunition cache and that security forces had opened an investigation into the matter.

Earlier, the ministry had described the explosion as “a terrorist aggression on civilians” that had caused “martyrs and wounded”, in a statement broadcast by state television. Authorities did not offer an explanation of the two statements.

Sadr City is a stronghold of the nationalist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose political bloc won a May 12 parliamentary election. Parliament ordered a national recount of votes on Wednesday.

In May, two homemade bombs targeted the headquarters of the Iraqi Communist Party, which is part of Sadr’s bloc.