By Saad Mohsen
Baghdad, Apr 14, (VOI) – Eight civilians were killed and 13 others wounded when a vehicle rigged with explosives blew up on a bridge in central Baghdad, an Iraqi police source said on Saturday. "A suicide bomber detonated his vehicle on the al-Jadiriya bridge on Saturday morning, killing eight people, wounding 13 others and damaging several nearby civilian vehicles," the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). The source said security forces sealed off the area while ambulances rushed the wounded to nearby hospitals. Al-Jadiriya bridge, which links al-Karkh and al-Rasafa areas in Baghdad over the river Tigris, was built during the former regime's era and is considered one of the most important bridges in Iraq. The bombing occurred two days after the explosion that ripped through the al-Sarafiya bridge in central Baghdad, killing 10 people and wounding 26 others amidst speculations about whether the attack was caused by a truck bomb or explosive devices planted beneath the bridge. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had decided to set up a crisis management committee under his deputy Burham Saleh to follow up investigations into the bombing of al-Sarafiya bridge and the explosion inside the conference hall in Baghdad's green zone. A spokesman for the Iraqi government said Saleh has instructed the housing and reconstruction ministry to take immediate measures to rehabilitate the al-Sarafiya bridge, parts of which were destroyed in the bombing. AE/TP