21 Dead as Terrorist Bomb-Making Class Accidentally Self-Detonates

"Now at this point, we must be very careful not to shake the bomb. Oh no! I have to sneeze!"

BAGHDAD – Militants accidentally set off their own car bomb Monday at a training camp in the countryside north of Baghdad, leaving 21 dead and resulting in two dozen arrests, Iraqi officials said.

In the city of Mosul to the north, meanwhile, the speaker of parliament — one of the most prominent Sunni officials in Iraq — escaped unhurt from a roadside bomb attack on his motorcade.

Car bombs are one of the deadliest weapons used by the Al Qaeda breakaway group in Iraq that dominates the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, with coordinated waves of explosions regularly leaving scores dead in Baghdad and elsewhere across the country.

The bombs are sometimes assembled in farm compounds where militants can gather without being spotted, or in car workshops in industrial areas. Police say the camp outside Samarra, a Sunni city 60 miles north of Baghdad, was in an orchard in the village of al-Jalam.

A police officer said the militants were attending a lesson on making car bombs and explosive belts when a glitch set off one of the devices. (Continue Reading.)