A suicide bomber in Iraq killed 10 people and wounded scores of others on Monday. The attack occurred in the eastern portion of Baghdad when the bomber blew himself up amidst a crowd Iraqis.
The crowd consisted of mainly poor Iraqis who were waiting on line at the time outside a bank to receive compensation for food rations the Iraqi government had failed to provide last year.
The explosion, according to Reuters, scattered the injured and bloodied bodies into the street outside the bank in the city's capital.
At least 11 more died in attacks elsewhere, including five members of a Shiite religious party who were shot dead in Baqouba and three policemen who died in separate incidents in Baghdad and Iskandariyah.
Also Monday, Iraq's former electricity minister, Ayham al-Samarie, escaped injury when a roadside bomb went off near his three-vehicle convoy in Baghdad, but two bodyguards were wounded, said police Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razzaq. According to the AP, the bomb targeted the convoy of al-Samarie as it passed through Baghdad's western Mansour district.
In another development, Al-Arabiya TV aired footage of two German hostages surrounded by their kidnappers Monday who threatened to execute them unless the German government doesn't meet their demand to cut relations with Iraq.
The station said the kidnappers, identified as Tawhid and Sunnah Brigade, warned the German government that it was the "last chance" to comply with their demands.
