8 killed in Iraq attacks ahead of Ramadan end

Baghdad, Aug 16: A wave of attacks across Iraq today killed at least eight people, as analysts warned of a potential escalation in violence to coincide with the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

Officials reported at least a dozen bomb blasts and one shooting in six different cities, a day after unrest left 13 dead, taking the overall death toll from nationwide unrest so far this month to 153. The deadliest attack took place in the town of Al-Garma, near the former insurgent bastion of Fallujah west of Baghdad, where four policemen were killed and three others wounded in a shooting at a checkpoint, according to police Major Enes Mahmud and Dr Omar Dalli at Fallujah hospital.

As emergency responders and civilians rushed to the scene to tend to the victims, a roadside bomb exploded, wounding three others. In the disputed, ethnically-mixed northern city of Kirkuk, four car bombs exploded within 45 minutes, killing one person and wounding 20 others, according to a police official and Dr Karim Wali at the city's main hospital.

Among those wounded were an unspecified number of security forces members, the officials said.

Bomb blasts in the town of Tuz Khurmatu, Dibis and Taji, all north of Baghdad, and in the capital itself killed another three people and wounded 24 others, officials said. Three roadside bombs exploded in Tuz Khurmatu near the home of a district chief, or mukhtar, killing his wife and leaving him and his three sons wounded, according to police and a local medic.

In Dibis, two roadside bombs near the home of a police captain killed his brother and wounded four others, including the captain himself, police and a doctor at nearby Kirkuk hospital said. A car bomb in the north Baghdad neighbourhood of Husseiniyah left one dead and at least nine wounded, while another car bomb in Taji injured at least seven people, according to security and medical officials.

AFP