A suicide car bomber attacked a hospital south of Baghdad on Thursday, killing 34 people and wounding dozens more as militants stepped up their campaign of violence before elections next month, Reuters reported. The explosives-packed car detonated as Iraqi security forces were gathered outside Mahmoudiya General Hospital and as U.S. civil affairs soldiers were visiting the facility to look at ways to improve it, the U.S. army and witnesses said according to Reuters. Another car bomb exploded near a crowded market in Hilla, 100 km (62 miles) south of Baghdad, killing up to four people, police said. Police earlier said up to 14 may have been killed. In the Mahmoudiya blast, four U.S. troops were wounded, but most of those killed and injured were civilians, including Hoda Ali Mahmoud, a 30-year-old woman whose young son was killed. She had taken him to the hospital for treatment for a cold. "The glass flew at us," she said, sobbing as she sat up in hospital. "His nose was hit and he couldn't breathe, she was quoted by Reuters." The body of her son, less than two years old, lay on the morgue floor at Yarmouk hospital in Baghdad, where many of the wounded were brought. Hasna Aboud's son, who was due to get married next week, was also killed. "My 22-year-old son was killed while trying to bring me some medicine," she said through her tears. "I lost my only son."
