By IANS,
Baghdad: At least 31 people were killed and more than 250 others wounded in bombings and shootings across Iraq Wednesday, Xinhua reported.
The first attack took place in Kirkuk, 250 km north of Baghdad, when a suicide bomber drove his explosives-laden truck into a compound housing offices affiliated to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).
The huge explosion destroyed parts of the compound buildings and set fire to several nearby vehicles.
Another blast took place when a bomb planted on a car parked in al-Tarbiyah area in Kirkuk went off near the convoy of a KDP official who was coming to visit the scene of the first blast.
“A total of 16 people were killed and 190 wounded by the two blasts,” Kirkuk governor Najm al-Din Omer said.
Another car bomb exploded near the office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), a Kurdish party headed by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, in Tuz-Khurmato, 200 km north of Baghdad.
Five people were killed and 40 others wounded.
The cities of Kirkuk and Tuz-Khurmato are part of disputed areas claimed both by the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan and Baghdad central government.
Three policemen were killed in Baghdad in the early morning hours, when gunmen attacked their vehicle in al-Shaab district.
In a separate incident, unidentified gunmen broke into a house in al-Washash district in western Baghdad and shot dead two women.
Meanwhile, six soldiers and five civilians were wounded in three roadside bomb explosions in and near Baghdad during the day.
A roadside bomb went off near a convoy of vehicles carrying mourners of Sunni MP Eifan al-Issawi, who was killed a day before in a suicide bombing in Fallujah.
Gunmen also shot dead two civilians near Dujail, 60 km north of the capital.
Explosions of two sticky bombs attached to two vehicles near Tikrit, 170 km north of Baghdad, left two people dead and nine others wounded, including six soldiers.
A soldier was died from a sniper shot at an Iraqi army checkpoint in Tikrit, the capital of the predominantly Sunni province of Salahudin.