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IRAQ: CAR BOMBS KILL 144 PEOPLE IN SADR CITY November 25, 2006
Bonny Apunyu
(SomaliNet) At leat 144 people were killed and 200 other injured by a wave of car bombs and mortars in Baghdad's Sadr City district Iraq police have said.
This incident recorded one of the most devastating series of attacks in Iraq's capital in a single day since the US-led invasion in 2003.
The bombings in Sadr City were followed by mortar attacks on Sunni areas. Meanwhile, the Iraqi authorities have put Baghdad under curfew and closed the airport, and Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki went on TV to appeal for restraint amid the violence.
"We denounce sectarian practices that aim to destroy the unity of the nation," Mr Maliki said.
Leaders of Iraq's Shia, Sunni and Kurdish communities also appealed for calm, while Iraq's most prominent Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, "urged people not to react illegally and maintain self-restraint and calm," one of his officials said.