Kirkuk car bomb strikes police convoy
At least two people died and 10 others were wounded in blast targeting the motorcade of an Iraqi police chief.
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A car bomb exploded near a convoy of a police officials in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, killing at least two people and wounding 10 others, police sources said.
The attack occurred in the Domeez area of southern Kirkuk on Monday and targeted the convoy of captain Ahmed Abdul-Ghafour, head of al-Rashad police station in the city, who was wounded in the blast.
“When will the situation improve? People went out to work and earn a living for their families. I have seven children and God protects me for their sake but what did those people do?,” said Sabah Hassan, a witness.
Kirkuk lies around 250 kilometres north of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, and is an ethnically contested city. The Kurds claim it as their own, though it is not within the boundaries of autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan. Earlier this month, a car bomb in a police garage in Kirkuk killed 27 people.
Earlier on Monday, a car bomb exploded near liquor shops in eastern Baghdad but caused no casualties, police said.
They said the car bomb, in the Zayouna district, damaged about ten shops and wrecked nearby cars.
On Sunday, a string of bombings killed at least 16 people and wounded 74 more across Baghdad and the nearby city of Taji, where a colonel in the interior ministry was injured.
Violence in Iraq has dropped sharply since the height of sectarian conflict four years ago, but bombings, assassinations and attacks occur daily.
Two US soldiers were killed on Sunday during operations in central Iraq, the US military said in a statement with no further details of when or how they had died.
Iraqi security forces and police are often targeted by insurgents as Washington prepares to withdraw the last US troops at year-end, more than eight years after the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein from power.
Iraqi forces will take over full control of security at the end of this year when the remaining 47,000 US troops are scheduled to leave Iraq. US troops are now mainly engaged in training and advising local forces.