By Xinhua
Baghdad : Car bombings popped up across Iraq on Wednesday, killing at least 23 people and leaving dozens wounded as the U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is visiting here to press for political reconciliation.
In Baghdad, at least 15 people and 28 injured when a car bomb went off at about 5 p.m. (1400 GMT) in the Karada neighborhood in central Baghdad, according to a local police source.
The explosion also caused damage to a Shiite mosque.
Earlier in the day, a car bomb went off in central Baquba City, the capital of Iraq’s Diyala Province northeast of Baghdad, killing five people and wounding 15 others, a provincial police source told Xinhua.
“A car bomb parked in a crowded area in downtown the city of Baquba detonated around midday, killing five civilians and wounding 15 others,” the source from the provincial police operations office said on condition of anonymity.
Another car bomb struck the northern city of Mosul, killing a civilian and wounding seven others, the police said.
Brigadier Muhammad al-Waggaa, deputy police chief of Nineveh province, where Mosul located, told Xinhua that the blast targeted a passing police patrol, but missed its target, causing civilian casualties instead.
The fourth attack took place in Kirkuk City, 250 km north of Baghdad, killing at least two people and wounding 10 others, the city police chief Brigadier Burhan Wasif said.
The blast apparently targeted a convoy of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces, guarding a police chief, but also missed its target, Wasif said.
The string of attacks overshadowed the visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who is expected to urge the Iraqi leaders to take advantage of the recent security pickup to achieve political reconciliation.
A Defense Ministry spokesman reportedly said that Gates intended to value “the considerable progress that has been made since his last visit” in September.
He will be meeting Iraqi leaders including both Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani “to get a take on the situation and see what more can they can do to capitalize on the gains made since the surge of US forces in Iraq,” Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell was quoted as saying.