BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Two separate bomb attacks killed 10 people in Iraq yesterday evening, police said, bringing the death toll from bomb attacks across the country to 19.
In one attack, a suicide bomber wearing a police uniform killed six people and wounded 18 others when he detonated an explosive vest at the entrance of a Shi’ite mosque in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northwest of Baghdad, police said.
The attack took place as people gathered to hear an evening sermon after breaking their fast during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. Some of those killed were police.
Baquba is the capital of the restive, ethnically and religiously mixed Diyala province, which has been site of numerous suicide and other attacks as violence across most of Iraq has subsided.
In a separate attack, a bomb planted on a minibus in southern Iraq killed four passengers and wounded eight others.
The bus exploded on the outskirts of the Shi’ite Muslim holy city of Kerbala, 80 km (50 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
Earlier in the day, nine people were killed in a suicide attack in western Anbar province. In that attack, a suicide bomber drove a car packed with explosives into a police checkpoint just outside the city of Ramadi.
At least 13 people were wounded.
Violence has dropped sharply in Iraq since the height of sectarian killing unleashed by the US-led invasion in 2003.
But a series of recent attacks, including twin truck bombings last month that killed almost 100 people in Baghdad, have raised doubts about whether Iraqi security forces can stave off renewed violence as US troops gradually withdraw.
Magnetic bombs that can be attached to the underside of vehicles, known in Iraq as ‘sticky’ bombs, have been an increasingly common tool for insurgents who continue to defy US and Iraqi security efforts.
