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Suicide hits kill 46 in Iraq

BAGHDAD: Thirty people were killed when a suicide car bomb ripped through a crowded market in the volatile Iraqi town of Tal Afar on Tuesday, just four days before a referendum on the new constitution that insurgents have vowed to disrupt.

Another 10 people were killed in a similar attack in Baghdad, starkly underlining the difficulties the Iraqi forces are facing in securing the country for the constitution vote on Saturday.

The new charter aims to turn another page in the political transition of the war-ravaged country following the toppling of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003, but has caused deep divisions between the country’s majority Shias and their Kurdish allies and the minority Sunni community.

Tal Afar police chief Najm Abdallah said 30 people were killed and 45 more wounded in the attack in the town, where less than a month ago US and Iraqi forces wrapped up an operation against insurgents.

On September 28, five people were killed when a woman suicide bomber blew herself up at a police recruitment centre Tal Afar, which lies between the main northern city of Mosul and the Syrian border.

In Baghdad, five soldiers and two civilians were killed and four others wounded in a suicide car bombing in the western neighbourhood of Al-Amariyah, a defence ministry source said.

Iraqi police also came under attack, with two policewomen shot and killed while riding in a taxi in Dura, a southern district of the capital, an interior ministry source said. Sixteen other people, including 12 policemen, were wounded in two other attacks in Baghdad, while two more targetted convoys of Iraqi officials and US soldiers, wounding four civilians, the source said.

Iraqi and US authorities have forecast that chronic violence would increase in the run-up to Saturday’s referendum, which Sunni Arabs have vowed to reject.

Late on Monday, a delegation of Arab League envoys was ambushed in the capital, and while none of the diplomats were harmed, two police bodyguards were killed. “We expected it to be dangerous,” the Arab League head of mission Algerian Ahmed Ben Helli said after the attack. “The world, and in particular the Arab world, must be aware of this situation. If it gets worse, it could spin out of control.” afp

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