A roadside bomb targeting the police chief of a northern Iraqi town that is home to a large Shiite population killed five people yesterday, including the chief and four of his bodyguards, a police official said.
The 8am attack in the town of Armili targeted a convoy carrying the town’s police chief, Major Zaid Hussein Khalaf, said Brigadier General Sarhat Qader of the police in Kirkuk, a city further north.
Armili, about 165km north of Baghdad, is a town with a population of 26,000, mostly Shiites from Iraq’s Turkoman ethnic minority. More than 100 people were killed in 2007 when a suicide truck bomber targeted a town market there.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Meanwhile, a Health Ministry official escaped an assassination attempt when a roadside bomb hit his convoy in the eastern part of Baghdad, but one ministry employee died in the blast, Iraqi police and health officials said.
Eight bystanders and four people in the convoy were also wounded in the attack that appeared directed at Ali Bustan al-Fartosi, who is in charge of eastern Baghdad’s medical facilities. The doctor escaped unharmed, the officials said.
The police said it was not known why the doctor was targeted.
Also in Baghdad, two bombs that targeted separate police patrols injured 10 people, including four policemen, police and health officials said on condition of anonymity.
In related news, the death toll in a suicide attack at the main Shiite mosque in Baqubah on Monday night has risen to eight, police said yesterday.
A further 20 people were wounded, a police officer said, noting that the attacker, who struck at around 9:45pm at the Abdel Karim al-Madani mosque was wearing police uniform.
Major Ghalib al-Karkhi of the provincial police said the bomber was forced to detonate his explosives prematurely after guards stopped him and asked for his ID card.
The attack brought to 22 the number of people killed on Monday, making it the bloodiest day in the country since the Muslim holy month of Ramadan began more than two weeks ago.
The deadliest attack on Monday was a suicide car bomber who struck a line of vehicles waiting to be inspected before crossing a bridge near the Anbar provincial capital of Ramadi, police said.
The blast set half a dozen other vehicles ablaze, killing three policemen and five civilians and wounding 16 other people, according to police and hospital officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to release the information.
A farmer riding in a pickup truck not far behind the attacker’s car ran toward the scene, where he described seeing a child who had been blown by the blast onto the roof of an automobile.
“I tried to approach him to see whether he was alive or dead, but the police started to open fire in all directions and we had to run away,” the farmer said.
Iraqi police frequently fire into the air at bombing sites to disperse the crowd and scare away other potential attackers.
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