14 killed, 68 injured in attacks in Iraq

KIRKUK, Iraq, May 8 (Xinhua) -- Fourteen people were killed and 68 others wounded in shootings and bombings, including suicide bombings against Kurdish security forces, in Iraq on Wednesday, the police and medics said.

The deadliest attacks occurred in the morning in and near the city of Kirkuk, some 250 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, when two suicide bombers and a car bomb detonated and left a total of four killed and 53 wounded.

In one of the attacks, a suicide bomber blew up his explosive- laden car at the entrance of the office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a Kurdish party headed by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, in central Kirkuk, a local police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The blast killed one of the Kurdish security guards and wounded 40 people -- most of whom were Kurdish security members, known as Peshmerga, the source said, adding that the blast destroyed part of the office building.

Rescuers and residents gather near a bombing site at the office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in Kirkuk, Iraq, on May 8, 2013.(Xinhua/Dena Assad)

Meanwhile, a car bomb detonated near a Kurdish security patrol in southwestern Kirkuk, leaving one security member killed and six others wounded, he said.

Another suicide car bomber struck a checkpoint at the entrance of a Kurdish security base near the town of Daquq, some 50 km south of Kirkuk, killing two Peshmerga members and wounding seven others and a civilian, the source added.

The ethnically mixed province of Kirkuk and its capital Kirkuk City are part of the disputed areas between the Kurds and both Arabs and Turkomans.

In a separate incident, a suicide bomber blew up his explosive vest near a crowd of policemen and civilians in the city of Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, killing a policeman and a civilian and wounding three, a police source told Xinhua.

Elsewhere, unidentified gunmen clashed with policemen at a checkpoint in the city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, leaving three policemen killed and two wounded, while a gunman was killed by the clash and another captured, a local police source anonymously told Xinhua.

In Baghdad, gunmen using silenced weapons shot a taxi driver in Jamia district in western the capital before they fled the scene, an Interior Ministry source said.

Also in the capital, two people were killed and eight wounded in two separate bomb blasts in northern Baghdad, the source said.

In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, an Iraqi army soldier was killed and two wounded in a roadside bomb explosion which hit their vehicle near the town of Qara-Tappa, some 170 km northeast of Baghdad, a provincial police source told Xinhua.

Violence and high-profile bomb attacks are still common in Iraqi cities despite the dramatic decrease in violence since its peak in 2006 and 2007 when the country was engulfed in sectarian killings.

from XINHUA
Editor: Mu Xuequan
2013-05-08 17:10:58

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Blast kills Iraqi Shia pilgrims in Basra

Suicide attack on worshipers on their way to a mosque leaves at least 53 dead in country's south, local police say.

A suicide attack has killed at least 53 Shia Muslim pilgrims and left another 137 wounded in Iraq's southern city of Basra, local police say.
The attacker, wearing a suicide vest, was said to have been disguised as a policeman when he targeted pilgrims who were passing through a checkpoint on the outskirts of the city on Saturday.
The pilgrims were heading towards a Shia mosque in the busy al-Zubair district, west of Basra city. The mosque is home to a seventh century shrine.
The attacks on Shia Muslim worshippers have been blamed on al-Qaeda linked forces.
Al Jazeera's Jane Arraf, reporting from Baghdad, said Iraqi security forces have "been on high alert for attacks of this kind" surrounding the Arbaeen rituals, commemorating the death of Imam al-Hussayn.
The attack is the lastest in a wave of car bombings and suicide attacks targeting Shia pilgrims on their way to Karbala for Arbaeen rituals, a religious rite that occurs 40 days after the day of Ashura.
The Arbaeen pilgrimage, one of the largest in the world, has drawn 12 million congregants to Karbala itself.
With the pilgrimage becoming a major focus of attacks, our correspondent said, some pilgrims "wrap themselves in white shrouds" - the traditional burial attire for Muslims - along the way.
Iraqi security forces have stationed 30,000 police and soldiers outside Karbala city and along the roads leading to it.
Iraq has experienced political tension along ethnic and sectarian lines after the Shia-dominated cabinet of Nouri al-Maliki issued an arrest warrant last month for Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, the country's highest-ranking Sunni politician.
Hashemi, who is currently living in Iraq's Kurdish north, was charged with terrorism as the final US troops were leaving the nation.
Basra was also the site a protest last week to denounce a decision by President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, to shelter Hashemi.

from ALJAZEERA

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