Iraq Calls for UN Probe in Sunday’s Explosions

Iraq’s foreign minister has made a call for a UN probe into Sunday’s twin suicide bomb explosions in Baghdad in which at least 155 people were killed and hundreds more wounded.

“The bloody Sunday explosions strengthen Iraq’s demand to the UN and the Security Council to nominate a senior international envoy to come to Iraq and evaluate the degree of interference targeting stability in Iraq,’ Hoshiyar Zebari, foreign minister, told al-Arabiya television.

“I believe this will be achieved soon, especially after (Sunday’s) explosions confirmed that this issue is vital and important. We need the help of the international community,” he added.

Zebari said that the probe should be centred on the support provided by foreign countries to militants and that the attacks restrengthened the need for international support to help his country defend itself.

The minister’s call for a UN probe followed a just reported claim of responsibility for Sunday’s explosions by an al-Qaeda linked group, the Islamic state of Iraq.

The statement posted on the internet said that its “martyrs … targeted the dens of infidelity.”

The authenticity of the statement, posted on a web site commonly used to claim responsibility for such attacks, could not be independently confirmed.

“Suicide bombers targeted the dens of infidelity and pillars of the rejectionist Shi’ite state in the land of the caliphate,” the statement read.