At least 7 killed in attack near Baghdad; curfew ends

BAGHDAD, Mar 4: A mortar round landed in a crowded market near a bus station and killed seven people and wounded 20 in a town just southeast of Baghdad police sources said today.

The attack, which was initially reported as a car bomb, comes as Baghdad residents return to relative normalcy with the lifting of a daytime curfew which prevented vehicle traffic on Friday.

While the overnight curfew remains in effect, the government had imposed daytime curfews to help stem the violence that escalated after the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra on February 22.

Today's attack in the town of Gisr Diyala near Salman Pak was the second in three days in an area plagued by sectarian violence.

Gunmen stormed through Nahrawan, another small town in the area yesterday, killing at least 19 people in what police said was a sectarian attack by Sunni on Shi'ite Muslims of the kind that has pushed Iraq towards civil war.

REUTERS