Car bombs in the northwestern city of Hadithah and the Shiite holy city of Karbala killed 13 people on Thursday, witnesses said. The Karbala bomb was detonated near headquarters for Bulgarian troops in the city.
The explosion outside the main police station in Hadithah killed 10 people, including three security officers, according to Arab news television. Twenty-seven people were injured.
The force of the explosion in the community about 250km northwest of Baghdad damaged the station, nearby city hall and a bank, according to witnesses.
Three suicide bombers died in Karbala after Iraqi police acted to intercept a suspicious vehicle. Two men in the vehicle fled before the automobile was detonated, killing the three occupants, said a police spokesman and witnesses. Several homes were damaged in the city situated 80km south of Baghdad.
About 1 000 Karbala residents took to the streets after the explosion to demonstrate against terrorism and call for the death penalty for Saddam Hussein.
The attacks were the latest in a series following a two-week period of relative calm following the handover of power to the interim Iraqi government.
On Wednesday, the governor of the northwestern province of Ninawah was assassinated in an ambush on the road between Mosul and Tikrit. four assailants opened fire with machine guns on the governor’s convoy, also killing two bodyguards.
A powerful car bomb had exploded earlier in Baghdad at an entrance to the security compound housing the interim government and foreign representations, killing 11 people and injuring 40. — Sapa