13 people killed in bomb attacks in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- A total of 13 people were killed and eight wounded in separate bomb and gunfire attacks on Thursday in Iraq, the police said.

In northern Iraq, a motorcycle packed with explosives went off near a primary school in al-Tiseen district in central the city of Kirkuk, some 250 km north of the capital Baghdad, killing three people and wounding six others, a local police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The powerful blast caused severe damages to the school and nearby buildings along with destroying several nearby civilian cars, the source said.

The city is part of disputed areas between the central government in Baghdad and the Kurdish semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq. The area has long been the hotbed of insurgency since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, gunmen opened fire on the house of a policeman in the town of Khalis near the provincial capital city of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, injuring the policeman and his brother, a provincial polices source anonymously told Xinhua.

Earlier in the day, the police reported another attack on a policeman's house in south of Baghdad when insurgents in the early morning hours blew up bombs in the house of the policeman Ahmed Zuwaiyn in the town of Mussayab, some 60 km south of Baghdad, killing him and nine of his family members, a local police source said.

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BAGHDAD — Insurgents bombed a house belonging to two policemen and their families in central Iraq early on Thursday, killing 10 people inside in the latest brazen attack since the U.S. troop withdrawal, officials said.

The house where the two policemen brothers lived was located in the Hamia area, about 31 miles south of Baghdad, a police officer said. It was leveled when insurgents detonated bombs they had planted around it at 1:00 a.m.

Both policemen, two children under one years of age and four women were among the dead, he added. A doctor at a nearby hospital confirmed the causality figure. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information.

Also Thursday, a motorcycle bomb missed a passing police patrol in the northern city of Kirkuk, but killed two civilians and wounded five others, the city's police commander Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qadir said.

Posted in: Baghdad, Diyala, Diyala Governorate, Iraq, Kirkuk, Shia Islam