Bombs kill 19 near Shi146;ite mosques on Eid

A leg and other body parts could be seen more than 100 metres from where a bomber detonated a taxi after ramming it into a police vehicle guarding a Shi8217;ite prayer hall in the Zafaraniya district, said a Reuters TV cameraman at the scene. Blood poured from a vegetable truck used to carry away the bodies and glass was shattered in surrounding buildings.

A witness to the Zafaraniyah attack said he saw a white car speed toward the mosque and then heard a huge explosion that sparked a fire and heavy smoke. Ammar Hashim, 25, who runs a car parts shop nearby, rushed to the site and saw 8220;a damaged and burned Humvee with dead and burned bodies and many injured people crying out in pain8221;.

8220;Pools of blood and the smell of burned flesh was everywhere and I saw a man of about 70 bleeding and lying on the ground from injuries,8221; said Hashim, whose brother was also injured by broken glass in his shop.

Baghdad security spokesman Major-General Qassim Moussawi said the Zafaraniya attack killed 10 people and wounded 31.

In the other strike, in the New Baghdad district, the bomber was a teenage boy, who was accosted by a member of the security forces before blowing himself up 80 metres from a mosque, killing six people and wounding 26, Moussawi said. Both districts are Shi8217;ite areas in the east of the capital. The death tolls could rise, police said.

Suicide bombs 8212; increasingly borne by women or teens 8212; are the signature tactic of al-Qaeda and like-minded Sunni Arab militants who frequently target Shi8217;ite civilians during religious festivals.

Government officials had warned that militants might strike during the Eid holiday, which Sunni Muslims began observing earlier in the week.

Outside the capital, gunmen opened fire on a minibus carrying a family to an Eid celebration in volatile Diyala province. They killed six people, including women and children.

Thursday8217;s strikes were the second major spate of attacks in recent days linked to Eid. On Sunday evening four bombs killed at least 32 people in Baghdad, many of them out buying Eid gifts in the busy Karrada shopping district.

The Government has declared a six-day public holiday to cover sects who observe Eid on different days.

Violence overall in Iraq is at four-year lows and al-Qaeda militants no longer control large numbers of villages and city districts as they did until 2007. But militant cells are still active and able to carry out bomb attacks.