Suicide attack kills at least 17 in Baghdad

A suicide bomber set off his explosives-laden belt on Tuesday in a mosque in busy commercial area in central Baghdad, killing at least 17 people, Iraqi officials said. The bomber entered the mosque in the Shorja market in downtown Baghdad as worshippers were heading inside to attend noon prayers, a police officer said. The explosion wounded 29 other people, he added. Inside the mosque, furniture lay overturned, walls were pockmarked with shrapnel and the ground was littered with shattered glass. Outside the mosque, blast barriers were stained with blood. Also in Baghdad, a bomb went off in an outdoor vegetable market in the eastern neighborhood of Sadr City, killing two civilians and wounding five others, police said. And two policemen were killed and six other people wounded when a bomb hit a police patrol in the southern Dora district, another police officer said. Three medical official confirmed causality figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information, AP reported.