New deadly bomb attacks in Baghdad as US troops are leaving

 American military vehicles on thir way out of Iraq. The last US combat units have left Iraq. Their departure was accompanied by a new wave of bomb attacks. (Photo Reuters)

Attacks in Baghdad have led to the deaths of at least 68 people with scores more injured.
In one strike early on Tuesday in a mostly Shia neighbourhood of the Iraqi capital, a bomb attached to a fuel truck exploded, killing eight people and wounding 44 more. The tanker, which was filled with kerosene, was blown up in the northwestern Ur neighbourhood.
Earlier in the day, at least 60 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack at an army recruitment centre in the Iraqi capital. Iraqi officials said at least 125 other people were wounded in that blast, when a suicide attacker detonated a bomb as men queued outside the centre in central Baghdad. The attack occurred at the historical site of the country's defence ministry, a building that was turned into an army recruitment centre and military base after the 2003 US-led invasion.
Al Jazeera's Omar Al Saleh, reporting from Baghdad, said the centre was busy on Tuesday because the defence ministry had recently called on new recruits to join the army."According to a police source they were standing in the hundreds," he said. "Then a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt [and] wearing an army uniform was talking to those recruits, pretending that he was trying to get their names, so people gathered around him and he detonated his charge.This is the deadliest attack since the start of [the Muslim holy month of] Ramadan, and the deadliest perhaps in the last month or so."
Security forces have been frequent targets of attack since the start of army restructure after the US-led invasion.
Tuesday's attacks come two weeks ahead of a US deadline to cut its troop numbers to about 50,000 and a day after Iraqi lawmakers suspended talks on forming a new government.