At least 22 people were killed, many of them security personnel, in a series of rebel attacks, including a car bomb, across Iraq on Tuesday, police and interior ministry officials said.
Three Iraqis were killed and 32 wounded when a suicide bomber blew up a car in central Baghdad, an interior ministry official said.
”The explosives-laden vehicle exploded at 1.45pm [local time] in a central Baghdad square,” the official said.
Earlier in the day, four police officers were killed and one wounded when their patrol car was ambushed in the east of the capital.
Two more police officers were shot dead on Al-Ghadir Street, also in east Baghdad.
One police officer was killed and three wounded in the capital’s western district of Al-Adel. One police officer was shot dead and his driver wounded in Baghdad’s southern district of Dura, while another police officer was shot dead also in the south of the capital.
And one police officer was shot dead and another wounded in Baquba, 60km north of the capital, police Lieutenant Khaled Ahmad said.
Four Iraqi soldiers were killed on Tuesday morning in a bomb explosion in Samarra, 120km north of the capital, while a businessman and his wife were shot dead near Al-Dur, about 150km north of the capital.
In other violence, unidentified gunmen opened fire on a minibus taking Shi’ite pilgrims to Iran, killing three and wounding eight, police and medics said.
The attack took place about 80km east of Baquba, near Imam Waiss, on a road heavily used by pilgrims visiting holy sites in neighbouring Iran.
Rebels have multiplied attacks against Shi’ite mosques and other targets in an attempt to spark a war between the majority Shi’ites who now control the government and minority Sunni Arabs, dominant under Saddam Hussein and who are now believed to provide the backbone to the insurgency. — Sapa-AFP