mercredi 26 août 2009

More than 20 Iraqis brought to Ankara for treatment


Twenty-six Iraqi citizens who were wounded in a string of blasts mainly targeting government buildings in Baghdad on Aug. 19 were brought to Turkey on Monday and are being treated at a hospital in Ankara, the Prime Ministry Directorate General for Emergency Management announced on Tuesday.
The wounded Iraqis have been accompanied by a 20-member group of relatives, the announcement briefly said.


At least six blasts struck locations near government ministries and other targets at the heart of Iraq's Shiite-led administration on Aug. 19, weeks after US combat troops withdrew from urban centers in June, thrusting Iraq's security forces into the lead role. More than 100 people were killed, with more than 500 wounded.

The Turkish Embassy in Baghdad, which is located 400 meters away from the Finance Ministry, which was one of the targets in the blasts, was lightly damaged due to the bombings. Nobody was killed or wounded at the embassy. Soon after the blasts, President Abdullah Gül called his Iraqi counterpart, Jalal Talabani, expressing Turkey's readiness to move whenever required and to lend all kinds of support.

Turkey has so far provided medical care to hundreds of Iraqis injured in insurgent attacks in recent days near the northern city of Mosul, which the US military has called the last urban stronghold of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
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