Car bombs kill 10 in Iraq
Two car bombs killed ten civilians today in a blast at a petrol station in central Iraq and another one targeting a two-car convoy carrying foreigners through central Baghdad, police said.
A suicide bomber killed six when he drove his pickup into a crowded petrol station in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, said police Lt. Col. Mahmoud Mohammed. Twelve people were injured and nine cars destroyed he added.
The burnt carcasses of two sheep were in the back of one destroyed truck, and burnt clothing was left around the petrol station car park, including a man’s traditional Sunni Arab robe apparently torn off by one of the injured civilians at the station.
In central Baghdad, a parked car bomb detonated when two armoured cars drove by, killing four people, Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said.
No one in the convoy was injured, but one of the armoured cars was damaged and removed by US forces, Mahmoud said.
The foreigners were not immediately identified, but none of them were injured, he added.
In the first signs of trouble to come, four people have been shot in the last two days while trying to hang campaign posters for the December 15 parliamentary elections, police said.
Two of the incidents took place in Mosul, 225 miles north-west of Baghdad, while two more were reported in the capital.
In north-western Baghdad yesterday, more than 200 members of the Batta tribe gathered at a mosque carrying banners and chanting slogans to demand the resignation of the defence minister over the killing on Wednesday of Khadim Sarhid al-Hemaiyem.
One of the sheikh’s brothers said gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms and vehicles broke into the family home, killing al-Hemaiyem, three of his sons and his son-in-law. A spokesman for the Interior Ministry denied that government forces were involved.
Another one of al-Hemaiyem’s sons was killed by men in uniform last month, family members said.
“We want the Arab League and the Sunni scholars to investigate,” said Abdullah Jawad Khadim al-Battawi, a relative.
A statement from the little-known Partisans of the Sunni claimed it carried out the car bombing on Thursday in the mostly Shiite city of Hillah in retaliation for the slaying of al-Hemaiyem and other attacks against Sunni Arabs.
Eleven people were killed and 17 were wounded in the Hillah attack.
“We have warned the (Shiites) to stop assassinations and detentions and torture,” the statement posted on Friday on an Islamist Web site said.
“You should know, your blood is no more dear than ours. You kill our men, we kill yours. You kill our sheikhs, we kill yours. You started this war.”
An Interior Ministry official said security forces were aware of the Partisans group, which has been active in the area south of Baghdad for months.
More than 270 people have been killed since November 18 in car bombings and suicide attacks against Shiite targets.
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