Baghdad: A spate of bombings, including a suicide attack on Iraqi soldiers attending an Army Day ceremony, rocked Baghdad today, killing at least 14 people and wounding 32, Iraqi officials said.

The suicide attack on the soldiers took place in Karrada neighbourhood as gifts were being handed out to troops by a civilian organisation on Army Day, an official holiday marking the 87th anniversary of the founding of the army.

Interior and defence ministry officials said at least nine people were killed in the attack, and at least 17 more were wounded.

Among the dead were six members of the security forces, hospital officials said. Seven police and soldiers were wounded, along with 10 civilians. US military spokesman Lieutenant Steven Stoder said that according to eyewitnesses two Iraqi soldiers were killed when they flung themselves onto the attacker as he detonated his explosives.

"They absorbed some of the blast. They saved a lot of lives," Stoder told AFP.

An AFP photographer who witnessed the attack said that the suicide bomber detonated his explosives near a group of soldiers who were singing and chanting outside the building where the event had taken place.

In another lethal attack in Baghdad, at least four people were killed and 11 wounded in a vehicle bomb explosion in the mixed northeastern district of Al-Qahira, security officials said.

Source : PTI