BAGHDAD, ? A series of blasts in central Iraq killed 15 people on Saturday, police officials said. Street vendors, market-goers and day laborers appear to have been the targets of the attacks.
The first two bombs exploded in the early morning where day laborers gather in the mostly Sunni village of al-Zaidan, near the town of Abu Ghraib west of Baghdad. They killed seven people and wounded 11 others, the officials said.
Hours later, three bombs exploded near the kiosks of vendors selling CDs and military uniforms in central Baghdad's Bab al-Sharqi market district , killing eight people and wounding 19 others.
Health officials at Abu Ghraib's general hospital and at three hospitals in Baghdad confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
"Three bombs exploded one after the other. I saw a woman, who was serving tea to customers, lose a leg in one of the explosions," said a young vendor selling clothes near the site of the Bab al-Sharqi blast.
Violence has ebbed across Iraq, but deadly bombings and shootings still occur almost daily as U.S. troops prepare to leave by the end of the year. Iraqi security officials maintain that they are fully prepared for the withdrawal.
Predominantly Shiite Bab al-Sharqi had until recently been surrounded by blast walls, which were removed as a consequence of the improved security situation, said Qassim al-Moussawi, the military spokesman for Baghdad.
The bombers "try to prove their presence and hinder our efforts to remove all the concrete walls, but we will continue removing them and keeping control," he said.
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Associated Press writer Qassim Abdul-Zahra and photographer Hadi Mizban contributed to this report.
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