Several bomb attacks kill dozens in Iraq
BAGHDAD – A series of coordinated evening blasts in Baghdad and other violence killed at least 67 people in Iraq on Tuesday, officials said, the latest in a months-long surge of bloodshed that Iraqi security forces are struggling to contain.
Many of those killed were caught up in a string of car bombings that tore through the Iraqi capital early in the evening as residents were out shopping or heading to dinner. Those blasts struck 11 different neighborhoods and claimed more than 50 lives in a span of less than two hours.
The killing comes amid a spike in deadly violence in recent months as insurgents try to capitalize on rising sectarian and ethnic tensions. The scale of the bloodshed has risen to levels not seen since 2008, a time when Iraq was pulling back from the brink of civil war.
The evening’s deadliest attack happened when two car bombs exploded near restaurants and shops Baghdad’s northeastern suburb of Husseiniyah, a Shiite area, killing nine people and wounding 32.
Family of WWII hero to ask Obama for help
STOCKHOLM – The family of World War II hero Raoul Wallenberg will ask President Barack Obama for help in their quest to find out what happened to the Swedish diplomat who vanished after being arrested by Soviet forces in 1945.
Wallenberg’s niece, Marie Dupuy, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the family will present a letter to Obama at a memorial ceremony for Wallenberg that the president is set to attend today in Stockholm.
In the letter, Wallenberg’s half-sister Nina Lagergren and the widow of his half brother, Matilda von Dardel, suggest U.S. diplomats raise the Wallenberg issue “directly in formal discussions with Russian authorities.”
“Wallenberg’s work as Sweden’s envoy in Budapest in 1944 was a cover for a humanitarian mission as secret emissary of the U.S. War Refugee Board, created in an attempt to stem the annihilation of Europe’s Jews. He saved at least 20,000 Jews in Budapest by giving them Swedish travel documents or moving them to safe houses.
Wallenberg disappeared after being arrested in Budapest by the Soviet Red Army in 1945.
Associated Press
