Iran condemns Baghdad bomb attacks

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hassan Qashqavi has condemned Wednesday’s deadly bomb attacks in Baghdad that killed 97 people and left 585 others wounded.

“Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki sympathized with the Iraqi government and nation and condemned the terrorist act in a telephone conversation with his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari,” Qashqavi told reporters at his weekly press conference on Monday.

“Mottaki and Zebari also talked about the meeting of Foreign Minister of countries neighboring Iraq during their telephone conversation,” he added.

“The meeting will help peace, security and stability in Iraq,” the spokesperson went on to say.

The Iraqi Foreign and Finance ministries in Baghdad were struck by two truck bombs, which shattered the windows of more than 150 civilian cars on Wednesday.

The first blast sent columns of smoke into the nearby residential area of Salhiyeh outside the heavily-fortified ‘Green Zone’, while the second car bomb detonated close to the finance ministry in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Waziriyah.

According to some reports, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki was apparently the target of the coordinated attacks; he was about to arrive at a hotel in the area to hold a news conference.

The violence prompted the Iraqi government to arrest 11 senior security officers after it admitted that the trucks should not have been allowed to pass nearby checkpoints.