By DPA
Baghdad : Ten policemen were killed and five injured in twin bombings Wednesday in Iraq’s restive Diyala province while senior defence ministry officials survived a bomb blast in the southern city of Basra.
A police patrol in the town of Muqdadiyah, northeast of Baquba, was hit in a bomb attack, which left eight policemen dead and two injured, police sources told the Voices of Iraq news agency.
Another bomb hit policemen in a civilian car in Wajihiyah near Muqdadiyah, killing two and injuring three, the unnamed sources said.
Baquba, 57 km north of Baghdad, is the capital of Diyala, a hotbed of Sunni insurgency.
In the southern city of Basra, a bomb attack hit a motorcade of senior officials from Iraq’s ministry of defence, including the ministry spokesman, Mohamed al-Akari, according to al-Arabyia television.
Al-Askari told the channel there were no casualties but a reporter from the Washington-based al-Hurra television was lightly injured.
Oil-rich Basra has been the scene of a major offensive, which was launched March 25 by government troops backed by US and British forces to loosen the grip of militias and gangs over the Shia-dominated city.