Two double bomb attacks killed at least 35 people in Iraq on Friday, while gunmen raided the home of a police chief, massacring his wife, brother and 12 bodyguards and seizing his children.
A twin bomb attack on a Shi’ite mosque near the northern oil city of Kirkuk killed at least 19 people and wounded 22, police and medical officials said.
In another dual attack, near the southern Iraqi city of Basra, 16 people were killed and 32 wounded.
Police said a suicide bomber detonated his explosives inside the Al-Thikalain Husseiniyah shrine in the town of Dakuk, south of Kirkuk, at about 2pm local time, about the same time as a car bomb exploded outside the building.
Major General Torhan Yussef, chief of Kirkuk police, said the attack left 19 people dead, five of them members of a family living near the mosque.
Doctor Azad Mahmud, from Kirkuk General Hospital, confirmed the toll and added that 11 of the wounded were in serious condition.
Dakuk is a town largely inhabited by Turkmen Shi’ites.
The twin attacks in the south of the country targeted the town of Tis al-Qurna, just north of Basra, where British troops are based.
Police and medical officials said the explosions — a bomb in a minibus at a bus station and a car bomb in a market — rocked the town at about 7.30am.
“First a minibus exploded at a bus station in al-Qurna and about the same time another car bomb exploded in a market in the town,” said First Lieutenant Imad Abdul Wahid of the al-Qurna police.
A medic in the town’s local hospital confirmed the attacks.
“We received 16 killed and 32 wounded, including many women and children from both attacks,” said Doctor Mohammed Nawruz of Qurna hospital.
In a separate incident west of Kirkuk, armed men killed an Iraqi army officer and his two-year-old daughter, police Lieutenant Mohammed Abdullah of the Hawijah police said.
The latest bloodshed comes after dozens of people were killed on Thursday, including 14 in a brutal raid on the home of Colonel Ali al-Jurani, chief of emergency police unit of the restive Diyala province.
A distraught Jurani told Agence France-Presse the attack on his house at Kan’an, south of the Diyala provincial capital Baquba, took place about 10pm local time on Thursday.
“Several armed men attacked my house … and killed 14 people, including my wife, brother and my 12 bodyguards,” said Jurani.
“The attackers also kidnapped my three children — two boys and a girl.”
Diyala is the second most dangerous province in Iraq after Baghdad and insurgents have stepped up attacks in the region following a massive crackdown in the Iraqi capital since February.
As part of the ongoing United States military “surge”, US authorities have dispatched more troops to Diyala, considered a hotbed of the al-Qaeda network.
Insurgents have regularly targeted the Iraqi security forces and their senior officials in a bid to destabilise the government and fuel the ongoing sectarian conflict in the country.
The wave of violence comes as US President George Bush’s new “war czar” acknowledged past misgivings about the surge of US troops into Iraq.
Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, who was nominated by Bush last month to oversee the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Iraqi authorities and other US agencies needed to step up alongside the US military.
“I expressed concerns in the policy development phase … that this not be simply a one-dimensional surge,” the three-star army general (54) told his Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday.
The surge climaxing this month would “likely have only temporary and localised effects” unless it was accompanied by “counterpart surges” by the Iraqi government and civilian US government departments, Lute said.
Bush announced in January that the United States was deploying more than 21 500 additional troops to Iraq, bringing the total to 160 000 by this month. — AFP