IRAQ BOMB ATTACKS

                                                   IRAQ BOMB ATTACKS

                                                  43 killed, over 190 wounded in Iraq bomb attacks

  As many as 43 people were killed and over 190 wounded in a series of bomb attacks across Iraq Tuesday, 20th March,2012the police said. One of the deadliest attacks occurred in the city of Karbala when two car bombs detonated almost simultaneously near a police station, killing 13 people and wounding 38, police said.
Another deadly attack occurred in the city of Kirkuk, some 250 km north of Baghdad, when a suicide car bomber and a car bomb struck a police headquarters, killing 10 policemen and one civilian, and wounding up to 42 people, a police source told Xinhua. A third car bomb ripped through an area located just south of Kirkuk, wounding 10 civilians.

The attacks came on the ninth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq that toppled the former leader Saddam Hussein and just days before Baghdad hosts an Arab League summit March 29. In Baghdad, a suicide bomber blew up his explosive-laden vehicle in the busy district of Alawi in the center of the capital, killing five civilians and wounding 28, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua.  Also in the capital, a car bomb exploded at about 10.15 a.m. at a parking lot outside the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, killing three people and wounding up to nine. Earlier, the source said six people were wounded by the blast.

Gunmen also attacked a church in Baghdad western district of Mansour and exchanged gunfire with policemen guarding the building, killing three of them before they fleeing.In a separate incident, a suicide bomber detonated his explosive-laden car near a coffee shop in Hilla, some 100 km south of Baghdad, killing at least two people and wounding some 30. In Iraq's western Anbar province, Qassim al-Fahdawi, governor of the province, escaped unhurt a car bomb explosion near his convoy in the city of Ramadi, some 100 km west of Baghdad. Four of Fahdawi's bodyguards were wounded in the blast. In a separate incident, a soldier and a civilian were killed and 17 people were wounded when a roadside bomb struck an Iraqi army patrol in Ramadi.

Also in the province, gunmen blew up bombs at the house of a policeman in the city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, killing his wife and his son. In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, seven people, including three policemen, were wounded in separate bomb attacks across the province.
Elsewhere, two people were killed and up to 13 wounded in sporadic bomb and gunfire attacks in Salahudin province, north of Baghdad.


                                                                                    Prof. John Kurakar