By Xinhua
Baghdad : Car and roadside bombings across Iraq on Thursday killed at least 15 people, including a town mayor and two policemen, and wounded over 23 others.
The mayor of Iskandriya, some 50 km south of Baghdad in the Shiite-Sunni mixed Babel Province, and his four bodyguards were killed by a roadside bomb on their way to work, a provincial police source said.
“A roadside bomb went off near the procession of Abbas Hamza al-Khafaji, mayor of Iskandriya town, while he is heading to work in the morning, killing him and four of his bodyguards, wounding another,” the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Iskandriya and several other major towns in Babel province in central-south Iraq are known as the “Triangle of Death,” which is a hotbed of both anti-U.S. insurgency and sectarian conflicts between Sunni and Shiite inhabitants.
Three roadside bombs and one car bomb also exploded in the day in Baghdad, killing at least eight people, interior ministry and police officials said.
A car bomb went off around midday near the Garage al-Amanah intersection in eastern Baghdad, killing three civilians and wounding eight others, an interior ministry source said.
A roadside bomb apparently targeting at a U.S. patrol exploded in northeastern Baghdad, killing a civilian and injuring six others.
While two other roadside bombs went off near two minibuses in southern and northern Baghdad, killing four civilians and wounding eight others, police officials said.
Separately, two Iraqi policemen were killed in fierce clashes with gunmen who attacked a police checkpoint near a town in northern Salahud in Province, a provincial police source said.
The incident took place early in the morning when the gunmen stormed the checkpoint near the town of Dowr, 140 km north of Baghdad, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Violence and sectarian strife claim the lives of dozens of Iraqis every day across the war-torn country, particularly in Baghdad, since the invasion of U.S.-led forces in 2003.