Seven Iraqis killed in car explosion: Police

Baquba (Iraq), May 10: Seven Iraqi civilians were killed today when a car exploded as they tried to recover four corpses found inside the vehicle near the city of Baquba, police said.

The seven were among a group of people travelling to work in a minibus near the city northeast of Baghdad when they spotted the car with the corpses inside by the side of the road, police said.

A policeman was among six people wounded in the blast.

The head of the Baquba morgue, Ahmed Fuad, said it had received a total of 11 bodies from the incident. The victims killed in the blast were employees of an electrical equipment factory on the outskirts of Baquba.

The discovery of bodies dumped by the side of the road and in other places is a common occurence in Iraq, where sectarian violence has increased in recent months.

Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, 65 km (40 miles) from Baghdad, has seen considerable violence on the part of Sunni Arab guerrillas in the past year.

Also in Baquba today, gunmen killed a detective lieutenant-colonel and his two bodyguards, police said. Kanan Hasan, a deputy of the head of criminal intelligence in Baquba, and his bodyguards were shot dead on their way to work.

REUTERS

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