Thursday, June 21, 2007

13 die in Iraq suicide bombing


A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden truck into a government building in northern Iraq Thursday killing at least 13 people, police said.
At least 35 people were wounded by the blast at the building, which house the police headquarters and mayors office for the city of Sulieman Pek, 50 miles (80 km) south of Kirkuk.
Earlier, at least four mortar rounds landed inside Baghdad's heavily-fortified Green Zone which houses the U.S. embassy, an Iraqi interior Ministry official said.
A column of black smoke was seen rising from the Green Zone.
On Wednesday, three Iraqi police officers were killed and 10 people wounded when a suicide car bomb exploded at an Iraqi police checkpoint in Ramadi about 65 miles west of Baghdad Wednesday afternoon, an Iraqi interior Ministry official said.
Also Wednesday, several Sunni mosques were attacked in what police believe are reprisals for a massive truck bombing that damaged a Shiite mosque and killed 87 people a day earlier, authorities said.
The mosques, all located in Babil province -- parts of which comprise the violence-wracked Triangle of Death -- were attacked Tuesday night, hours after the bombing outside Khalani Mosque, police in Hilla said.
Militia members attacked two mosques in Iskandariya and another near Mahawil, police said.
Authorities said they believe the attacks were perpetrated by Shiites angered by the bombing at Khalani Square, which damaged the nearby mosque of the same name Tuesday afternoon. At least 214 people were injured in the blast, according to the Interior Ministry.
The apparent reprisal attacks, all of which came within about 75 minutes of each other, began when gunmen stormed Osama bin Zaid, a mosque in Iskandariya, and set off bombs about 9:45 p.m.
Fifteen minutes later, a bomb exploded inside Abdulla al-Jabouri, another Iskandariya mosque that was attacked as recently as last week. The bomb caused minor damage, police said. (Watch cockpit videos of air attacks in Iskandariya )
About an hour later, in Ajbala, near Mahawil, militia members bombed the Asfouk Mosque and the house next door, which belonged to a local imam, police said.


CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.

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