Dozens killed in Iraq bombings
Baku, February 23 (AZERTAC). At least 53 people have been killed and dozens more wounded by a wave of bombings and shootings across Iraq.
Most of the violence, the deadliest in Iraq this month, was centred on the capital Baghdad, where attacks killed at least 22 people, an interior ministry official said. A car bomb in the Shia shrine district of Kadhmiyah in north Baghdad killed six people and wounded 15, the official said.
In Adhamiyah, across the Tigris river, gunmen attacked a police checkpoint, killing six people and wounded three.
A car bomb exploded in the Karrada district of central Baghdad near a police checkpoint, killing one person and wounding 11, while another car bomb exploded in the same area about 30 minutes later, killing another person and wounding six.
And two roadside bombs and an attack by unknown gunmen against a police checkpoint killed two people and wounded nine in Umm al-Mualaf in southwest Baghdad. In Dura in south Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed two people and wounded 10.
Two roadside bombs exploded near a restaurant in Abu Shir, also in south Baghdad, killing two people and wounding 10.
A car bomb in Mansur in west Baghdad killed two people and wounded five. And a roadside bomb wounded five people in Taji to the north of Baghdad.
In Diyala province, north of the capital, two car bombs exploded in the provincial capital Baquba, killing three people and wounding eight, while a roadside bomb killed one person, a police major said. Gunmen also attacked a house west of Baquba, killing two people and wounding a third, while a roadside bomb east of Baquba wounded a man and his wife. And a car bomb in the town of Dujail killed one person and wounded three at about 8:00am (0500 GMT), the officer said. In Salaheddin province, also north of Baghdad, another car bomb exploded in the refinery town of Baiji near its courthouse at about 7:00am (0400 GMT), killing three people and wounding five, a police colonel said.
And 12 people were wounded by a car bomb near the police headquarters in Balad, north of Baghdad, about 9:30am (0630 GMT), a police lieutenant colonel said. South of the capital, a car bomb exploded about 8:15am (0515 GMT) in the city of Hilla, killing one person and wounding five, a police first lieutenant said. In Al-Mussayeb, a car bomb wounded 63 people, most of them primary schoolchildren, the police lieutenant and a hospital official said.
A roadside bomb in Al-Nil, north of Hilla, wounded seven people, three of them policemen, the lieutenant added.
In the northern oil hub of Kirkuk, two car bombs targeting police wounded 25 people, while another car bomb targeting an office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani to the south of the city wounded four, security and medical sources said.
It was the deadliest day in Iraq since January 14, when 53 people were killed in a suicide bombing on the outskirts of the southern port city of Basra.
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