18 killed, 44 wounded in Iraq attacks

Baghdad – At least 18 people were killed and 44 wounded in a wave of violent attacks in Iraq Monday.

A roadside bomb exploded near a market in Baghdad’s Sadriya area in the evening, killing at least 11 people and injuring 25, reported Xinhua citing a police source .

Earlier in the day, seven people were k! illed and 19 wounded in separate bombings and shootings across Baghdad.

The attack occurred around noon when a car bomb went off near a crowd of civilians gathered outside a police station in Bob al-Sham neighbourhood in Baghdad, leaving at least three dead and 15 wounded.

The civilians were lining up at the police station, following new security measures to avoid violence in the area, to get their badges for entering their neighbourhood.

In a separate incident, gunmen shot dead a government employee in the Shiite neighbourhood of Amil in Baghdad.

A sticky bomb attached to a civilian car detonated in Baghdad’s Doura district, killing the driver and wounding a civilian, the source said.

Another bomb exploded in a car in Baghdad’s Husseiniyah district, killing the driver and wounding two passersby.

In Iraq’s Nineveh province, the provincial governor Atheel al-Nujaifi escaped unharmed from a roadside bomb explosion near his convoy in M! osul city, around 400 km from here, said a provincial source.

T! he blast damaged one of the convoy’s vehicles and wounded one of his bodyguards, the source said.

Monday’s assassination attack was the fifth this year against Nujaifi, who is the brother of the Iraqi parliament speaker Osama al-Nujaifi.

Also in Mosul, gunmen shot dead an official of the Dawa Islamic party, headed by the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, when they opened fire on his car in al-Muthanna district, the source added.