Suicide Bombing Kills 4 in Iraq

A suicide bomber has set off a car packed with explosives at an army checkpoint in Iraq, killing at least four people and wounding 12 others.

The attack Tuesday happened in Taji, about 20 kilometers north of the capital, Baghdad. At least two soldiers were among those killed.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

The bombing is the second such attack in as many days in Taji. On Sunday, a suicide bomber targeting government-backed forces killed at least 22 people.

from VOA News
February 05, 2013

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22 killed in suicide bomb north of Baghdad

A suicide bomber has blown himself up near Taji, north of Baghdad prison in Iraq. (warning graphic image!)(Reuters)

A suicide bomber detonated himself outside an Iraqi prison near Taji, north of Baghdad, on Monday, Al Arabiya's correspondent reported.
Details of the attack are still developing.

Meanwhile, another suicide bomber discharged near a group of anti-Qaeda militiamen as they were receiving their salaries in the town of Taji. The death toll is still unconfirmed, 22 have allegedly been killed, according to AFP.

The attack in Taji, follow a day after separate attacks killed 30 people in north Iraq.

A medic working in Baghdad’s Kadhimiya hospital confirmed the toll.

Sahwa militiamen, mostly Sunni Muslims who helped turn the tide of violence which engulfed Iraq in the wake of the US invasion, took up arms against Al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2006. They have often been targeted by the extremist group.

The Sahwa fighters recently saw their monthly salary, paid by the government, rise to 500,000 dinars ($415) from 300,000 dinars.

Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government is hoping this gesture will appease Sunni protesters who have been demonstrating against his rule for more than a month.
Violence was also reported in other parts of Iraq on Monday and during the night.

A police lieutenant, in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Jihad, was killed and three of his colleagues wounded in a blast caused by an improvised explosive device, the ministry official and medics said.

Four people were also shot dead overnight in Kirkuk, hours after a coordinated assault on a police headquarters in the north Iraq city left 30 people dead, officials said.
The security and medical officials said that at around midnight a gunman opened fire on four men sitting in a caravan adjacent to a neighborhood electricity generator, killing all of them.
Districts nationwide are serviced by private generators which fill the large power gap, as most Iraqis get fewer than 10 hours of electricity per day.

Typically, the generator operator and some of his friends stay in a caravan next to the machine to ensure it operates constantly.

The violence comes as Iraq grapples with a political crisis pitting premier Maliki against his government partners amid weeks of protests calling for him to resign.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks but local security officials blame Al-Qaeda’s front group in Iraq, which often targets security forces and officials in a bid to
Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed city 240 kilometers north of Baghdad, lies at the heart of a swathe of disputed territory claimed by both the central government and Iraq’s autonomous northern Kurdish region.

The unresolved row is persistently cited by diplomats and officials as the biggest threat to Iraq’s long-term stability.
The violence was the latest in a spike in unrest that saw 246 people killed last month, the most since September, according to an AFP tally.

from AL ARABIYA
Last Updated: Mon Feb 04, 2013 15:24 pm (KSA) 12:24 pm (GMT)

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Series of bomb blasts kills up to 16 in Iraq

A series of car bombs in and around the Iraqi capital killed at least 16 people and wounded dozens of others on Tuesday, security and medical officials said.
The blasts struck an Iraqi army checkpoint south of Baghdad, a military base north of the capital, and a mostly Shiite neighbourhood also in the north, officials said.

In the deadliest attack, six people were killed when a car bomb was detonated near an army camp in the town of Taji, 25 kilometres north of the Iraqi capital, an army officer and a medical official said.

At least 20 other people were wounded.

South of the capital in the town of Mahmudiyah, at least five people were killed and 14 others wounded by a suicide car bomb, officials said.

And a car bomb near a market in the north Baghdad neighbourhood of Shuala killed five and wounded 12.

No group claimed responsibility, but Sunni militants often launch attacks in a bid to destabilize the government and push Iraq back towards the sectarian violence that blighted it from 2005 to 2008.

Tuesday's violence came after four days of relative calm in Iraq following a spate of attacks claimed by Al-Qaeda's front group that left at least 88 people dead on January 15-17, according to an AFP tally.

By Al Arabiya with Agencies
Last Updated: Tue Jan 22, 2013 14:00 pm (KSA) 11:00 am (GMT)

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6 killed, 11 wounded in Iraq sunday attacks

BAGHDAD, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Six people were killed and 11 wounded in separate attacks, including a car bomb, across Iraq on Sunday, the police said.

In Iraq's northern city of Kirkuk, a booby-trapped car went off near a patrol of a Kurdish security police, locally known as Asayish, while moving near the city's university in central Kirkuk, some 250 km north of Baghdad, a local police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The blast killed a Kurdish security member and wounded seven others, along with destroying one of the patrol's vehicles and several nearby civilian cars and buildings, the source said.

In Salahudin province, gunmen in the early morning hours broke into the house of an Iraqi army soldier in the city of Sulaiman Pek, some 160 km north of Baghdad, and shot him dead before they fled the scene, a source from Salahudin's provincial operations command anonymously told Xinhua.

The ethnically mixed cities of Kirkuk and Sulaiman Pek are part of disputed areas claimed both by the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan and Baghdad central government.

Earlier in the day, an Interior Ministry source reportedly said that three members of a family, including a five-year-old boy, were killed when gunmen planted bombs around a house made of mud and straw and blew them up in Taji area, some 20 km north of Baghdad.

A two-year-old daughter of the family was also wounded by the blast, which occurred in the early morning hours, the source said.

In a separate incident, a civilian was injured when a sticky bomb attached to his car detonated in Baghdad's southeastern district of Zaafaraniya, the source added.

In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, a former security officer during Saddam Hussein's era was gunned down by armed men using assault rifles in the town of Buhruz, just south of the provincial capital city of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, a provincial police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

In a separate incident, an old women and her daughter were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded in front their house in al- Gatoon area, just west of Baquba, the source said.

Also in the province, Iraqi security forces carried out search operations across the province during the past 24 hours and arrested six suspects, including five wanted individuals, the source added.

Violence is still common in the Iraqi cities despite the dramatic decrease since its peak in 2006 and 2007 when the country was engulfed in sectarian killings.

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