Share this story!            

30 killed and 130 injured in Iraq

BAGHDAD: Insurgents killed 30 people and injured 130 on Monday in attacks that included bombings of a Baghdad restaurant and a regional mayor’s office.

Police said a car bomb blew up outside a restaurant in northern Baghdad at lunchtime, killing eight people and injuring 90. Later, a suicide car bomber targeted a Shia mosque in Mahmoudiya, killing seven people and wounding 23, many of them children, doctors said. In Mosul, 30 people were feared dead or injured after two car bombs exploded outside a building housing a Shia organisation in Tal Afar. The attack appeared to target Turkman-Shia sheikh Hasan Bagdash, police sources said. It was the second failed assassination attempt on Bagdash in recent days.

A suicide truck bomb was also detonated near the mayor’s office in Tuz Khurmatu, killing five people and injuring 18. Among the dead was the brother of Mohammed Mahmoud Jigareti, a senior Patriotic Union of Kurdistan official, said police. Jigareti was wounded in the blast. Both men had been in a car that was entering the mayor’s office compound when the bomber struck.

Guerrillas also struck in Samarra, targeting a United States base with two car bombs and a suicide bomber strapped with explosives, killing four Iraqis and wounding four US soldiers.

Insurgents have also been targeting the US military and three American soldiers were killed in separate attacks in Mosul, said the US military, and another US soldier was killed by a bomb blast near Tikrit. The military added that US and Iraqi forces detained 285 suspected insurgents in Abu Ghraib after a widespread search. It said the operation, “Squeeze Play”, was designed to kill or capture guerrillas who have been staging attacks in the capital.

Earlier, gunmen shot and killed Iraqi Prime Minister advisor Wael Rubaie, an official in the operations room of the State Ministry for National Security, said a government statement. His driver was also killed. Al Qaeda’s wing in Iraq, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said it was behind the assassination.

Zarqawi’s group also said it killed a US pilot it had captured and posted pictures of his identity papers on the Internet, naming him as Neenus Khoshaba. The man’s brother, Boulus, said Neenus had never worked for the US military and had recently returned to Iraq seeking business opportunities after studying in the United States.

In Dubai, Islamic militant group Army of Ansar al-Sunna said it shot dead three Arab drivers working with US forces in Iraq, according to videos posted on the Internet. agencies

Home | National

Share this story!