A series of deadly attacks, including two suicide bombings, on Thursday killed some 42 people and wounded more than 100 others a week after the U.S. troops left Iraqi cities and towns.
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Iraqis stand outside a damaged house after a bomb attack in Mosul, 390 km (242 miles) north of Baghdad July 9, 2009. [Xinhuanet.com] |
Up to 35 people were killed and some 70 others injured, including many in critical condition, when two suicide bombers successively struck the house of a police officer in the town of Tal-Afar, some 70 km west of Mosul, capital city of Nineveh province, a local police source said.
The first suicide bomber wearing an explosive-belt entered the house of the police officer who works as investigator at the town's anti-terrorism police department, and blew himself up, killing the officer, his wife and son, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Minutes later, another suicide bomber detonated his explosive-belt among dozens of people gathered near the scene, the source said.
The powerful blasts destroyed the house and caused severe damage to nearby houses, the source added.
Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, has been a stronghold for insurgent groups, including al-Qaida organization.
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A man stands outside a damaged house after a bomb attack in Mosul, 390 km (242 miles) north of Baghdad July 9, 2009. [Xinhuanet.com] |
Elsewhere in Baghdad, two roadside bomb explosions struck a busy marketplace in the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City at about 7:30 a.m. (0430 GMT), killing seven people and wounding more than 20 others, the police said.
However, Qassim Atta, spokesman of Baghdad operations command, put the toll at six killed and 31 injured by the two blasts that hit an outdoor market in the Shiite bastion in eastern Baghdad.
Explosive experts defused a third bomb at the scene, Atta said.
Amir Hassan, 28, a vendor of a vegetable stall, said "I heard the first explosion which was only about 50 meters away. I was injured and my stall collapsed."
"When the second blast took place shortly after, I was still lying on the ground," said Hassan, who left the hospital after receiving treatment for minor injury in his hand.
Also in the day, some 11 people were wounded in separate bomb attacks in Baghdad, including a bomb explosion targeted the convoy of the Iraqi Central Bank Governor Sinan al-Shibibi, who escaped the attack unhurt, while two of his guards were wounded along with three pedestrians, the police said.
In a separate incident, a bike bomb went off in a main street in the Muwasalat neighborhood in southwest Baghdad, wounding four people, according to the police.
Two more people were wounded when a bomb planted in a civilian car detonated at the Darwish intersection in the Eilam District.
The latest wave of attacks has shaped a setback to the Iraqi security forces which are struggling to build a confidence among Iraqis that it has the ability to take over security control of the country's urban areas by its own, just a week after the U.S. troops pullout from Iraqi cities and towns under a security pact signed late last year between Baghdad and Washington.
(Xinhua News Agency July 10, 2009)
