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6 killed in Iraq violence

BAGHDAD: Six people were killed and several others wounded in the rising wave of violence across Iraq on Friday.

A powerful blast in the vicinity of the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad killed at least two people and injured 13, witnesses and hospital officials said. More casualties were feared from the explosion, which lit the night sky and sent columns of smoke over western Baghdad.

The explosion was possibly caused by a fuel truck, said a neighbour living on a major street in the district, which also houses foreign companies and other embassies. “The smell of explosives is hanging over the whole area,” a resident said. The US military said it was investigating the explosion. Three people including a tribal sheikh and a child were killed in Baquba attacks, the US military and local police said, as insurgents shelled a police station with mortars. Elsewhere, three Kurds were kidnapped near the northern oil centre of Kirkuk. And in conflict-riven Ramadi, US marines said insurgents dynamited the mayor’s office.

Gunmen killed Sheikh Zeid Khalifa Mohsen al-Beni-Waiys late Thursday as he drove through his hometown of Sadyiah, said Master Sergeant Robert Powell. Beni-Waiys served on the local city council set up by US forces, Powell said, adding that the Americans considered him a “moderate”.

It was the latest assassination of a local leader after a tribal chief, Hazem Daraa, was gunned down by assailants in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit on Wednesday night.

In Duluiya, an Iraqi was killed and four others wounded in clashes between insurgents and the national guard. And on the road between Samarra and Tikrit, a child was killed and three others wounded in a roadside bomb, the hospital in the nearby town of Samarra said.

Meanwhile, a police station and the governor’s mansion in Bohrouz, just south of Baquba, were hit by small arms and mortar fire early Friday, without causing casualties, Powell said.

In Fallujah, fighting erupted for the second straight day as residents sought to return home after last month’s massive US-led assault to rid the Sunni Muslim bastion of insurgents. Many of those who ventured in said they would not stay in a “ghost city.” agencies

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