Double Blasts Kill 35 in Iraq

Double blasts from a car bomb and a roadside bombing at a parking lot outside a city council building north of Baghdad killed at least 35 people today, Iraqi police and hospital officials said. The attack started when insurgents first detonated a car bomb around noon in the parking lot of the local council building in Taji, a Sunni-dominated town about 12 miles from Baghdad. That blast was followed by a roadside bomb that went off as civilians and security forces gathered to help the victims from the first explosion.

Most of the victims happened to be outside the council building at the time of the blasts. Eyewitnesses said burnt human bodies, some of them women, were lying on the ground and that about 20 cars were on fire. The explosions are the latest in a series of attacks across Iraq as the government and political leaders debate whether to ask the United States to keep some American troops here past their year-end withdrawal deadline. (More Baghdad stories.)