Iraq bombs end Ramazan lull

BAGHDAD (Reuters/AFP) - A series of bomb attacks across Iraq killed at least 15 people, including 12 members of security forces, on Monday, police said, ending a period of relative quiet following the Muslim holy month. In western Anbar province, a suicide bomber driving a water tanker packed with explosives blew himself up near a police station, killing seven policemen and wounding 10, said Hussein Ali, a police major in the area west of the city of Ramadi. The attack burned out several cars and damaged the building. Elsewhere on Monday, three soldiers were killed and 28 people - including nine troops and an unknown number of policemen - were wounded by back-to-back bombs in western Baghdad, an Interior Ministry official said. The first explosion, a homemade bomb targeting an army patrol, wounded just one civilian and caused some damage but a secondary device inflicted fatalities. In a further attack, in the southern province of Diwaniyah, a bomb went off inside a minibus, killing three people and wounding five, a hospital official said. A police colonel at the scene said six people were killed, but another police officer put the death toll at three. And in the restive northern city of Mosul, two policemen were killed and two wounded by a roadside bomb that targeted a patrol in the centre of the city, a police official said. Mondays death toll of 15 was the highest since September 10, when at least 26 people were killed in violence across the country.

ePaper - Nawaiwaqt