Deadly car bomb hits Baghdad

Blast near city hospital kills six people and injures many more.

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US and Iraqi officials say that violence in Iraq has dropped to four-year lows [AFP]

A car bomb has exploded in the Shaab district of northern Baghdad, killing six people and wounding 14.

The explosion on Sunday morning was in front of the mortuary of the capital’s Al-Yarmukh hospital, one of the main medical facilities in the city, a defence ministry official said.

Several shops were destroyed by the blast.

One woman was among the dead and three policemen were wounded. Initial reports suggested the blast targeted an interior ministry convoy.

“Six people have been killed and 14 others wounded,” an interior ministry official said. 

Separate attacks

 

In other violence, a roadside bomb killed at least seven family members of a senior Kurdish official in the Diyala province, police said.

 

The bomb hit a convoy carrying Mohammed Ramadan, a senior member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, one of the two main Kurdish parties in Iraq.

 

Ramadan was wounded in the attack in Jalawla, 115km northeast of Baghdad. His wife and three sons were killed. Ramadan’s two bodygaurds also died.

 

US and Iraqi officials say that violence in Iraq has dropped to four-year lows while numbers from the Iraqi health ministry report that at least 448 civilian were killed in June in Iraq, and from May, 505.

 

The May figure was down from at least 960 civilian deaths in April, a month when fighting spiralled between armed Shia groups and security forces.

Source: Al Jazeera, News Agencies