By DPA
Baghdad : A fresh spate of violence Tuesday left at least 14 dead and 19 injured in Iraq, where US troops uncovered what they said was a network of underground tunnels used by Al Qaeda insurgents to store weapons and launch attacks.
In Baghdad, a car bomb went off near the ministry of industry, killing at least five and injuring 10, a police source told the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency.
Another car bomb blast killed two and injured seven in Baquba, 60 km northeast of Baghdad.
“A suicide bomber driving the car blew himself up today (Tuesday) at a police checkpoint in the New Baquba area, killing two, one of whom is a policeman, and injuring seven, two of them also policemen,” security sources said.
In the northern city of Mosul, seven people from the Yazidi Kurdish religious minority group were killed and two injured in an overnight attack by gunmen on a home in Sinjar, west of Mosul, 400 km north of Baghdad, a Sinjar official told VOI.
The Yazidis are members of an ancient religion, who live in northern Iraq, Syria and the Caucasus. Deadly bombings hitting Yazidi areas near Mosul in August left over 200 people dead.
In another development, US forces uncovered a network of underground tunnels used by al-Qaeda insurgents in central Iraq to store weapons and launch attacks, the US military said Tuesday.
The tunnels were unearthed during a US search operation in an area northwest of Iskandariya, south of Baghdad, Dec 15, a military statement said.
According to the statement, there were several heavy machine gun rounds in the tunnels, leading troops to speculate the tunnels may have served as enemy firing positions for anti-aircraft guns, as well as hiding places for Al Qaeda in Iraq fighters after they launched attacks.
The bunkers were destroyed after air support was called in and two bombs were dropped on the target, which is the first of its kind in the central area controlled by US troops.