as Sarrafiya Bridge
The as-Sarrafiya Bridge ( Arabic جسر الصرّافية, DMG Ǧisr aṣ-Ṣarrāfiya , often also Al-Sarafija ) is an approximately 460 m long bridge in Baghdad that spans the Tigris . It connects the Sunni district of Waziriya in the east and the Shiite district of Utifiya in the west. It was designed by the British as a car and railroad bridge in 1946 and completed in 1951. In the early 1970s, the tracks were removed in favor of car traffic. The bridge was damaged in an American bombing raid during the Second Gulf War .
Attack and reconstruction
On April 12, 2007 , a suicide bomber drove a truck loaded with explosives to the driveway of the bridge and blew himself up. Large parts of the bridge collapsed. Some vehicles that were on the bridge fell into the Tigris. The attack resulted in 10 dead and 26 wounded.
It took a year and two months to restore the bridge. It was inaugurated on May 27, 2008 by Iraqi Prime Minister Jawad al-Maliki . A total of 18 billion Iraqi dinars (around 10 million euros ) were invested in the reconstruction project.
Web links
- Truck bomb destroys Tigris Bridge ( memento from October 26, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- Several dead in the attack on the Tigris Bridge ( memento from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
Coordinates: 33 ° 21 ′ 13 ″ N , 44 ° 22 ′ 22 ″ E