String of Attacks Kill 19 People in Iraq

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
By SAMEER YACOUB - Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - (AP) Gunmen killed two relatives of a senior
Kurdish official and 17 others died in a string of attacks overnight and on
Sunday, piercing three days of relative calm that followed the country's
first election for a full-term parliament.
The latest attacks, two of them suicide bombings, came after
authorities eased stringent security measures put in place for the Oct. 15
parliamentary election and traffic returned to normal on the first full
working day since the vote. A ban on vehicles was lifted and the country's
borders reopened Saturday, although the frontier with Syria remained closed.
Authorities said it would reopen in a few days, but did not give a reason
for the delay.
In the northern city of Kirkuk, two relatives of an official of the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the two main Kurdish parties, were shot
late Saturday as they walked near their house, police said. They were
identified as Dhiab Hamad al-Hamdani and his son _ the uncle and nephew of
party official Khodr Hassan al-Hamdani. The PUK is led by President Jalal
Talabani.
In Baghdad on Sunday, a roadside bomb killed three police officers
and wounded two. A similar attack on Saturday night killed one policeman and
wounded two in the northern town of Tuz, 68 miles south of Kirkuk, police
said.
Unidentified gunmen killed a police Lt. Colonel and an Interior
Ministry employee in separate attacks. Both were driving to work in western
Baghdad when they were attacked. Four police officers were seriously injured
when their squad car was sprayed with gunfire and a tea seller was shot and
killed in the same area.
A police captain and his driver were shot and killed in south
Baghdad while two people, including an Interior Ministry driver, were killed
in Baghdad's Shiite Sadr City slum.
A suicide bomber killed a police officer and injured two when he
blew up a bomb in a mini van at a checkpoint along the a highway in eastern
Baghdad near the Interior Ministry.
A roadside bomb killed at least one woman and injured 11 in the
northern Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah, police said.
Police also said one suicide bomber was killed in Amiriyah, about 25
miles west of Baghdad when his explosives-laden belt prematurely detonated a
belt.
On Sunday, police found the body of a former Iraqi Army officer at a
fuel station in the center of the capital. Abbas Abdullah Fadhl had been
shot to death in his car, they said. Another unidentified man was found shot
dead in east Baghdad.
Millions of Iraqis voted Thursday to choose a four-year parliament
in an election that passed peacefully around the country. Although no
official figures have been released, authorities estimate just under 70
percent of Iraq's 15 million registered voters cast ballots.
The big turnout _ particularly among the disaffected Sunni Arab
minority which boycotted the election of a temporary legislature last
January _ have boosted hopes that increasing political participation may
undermine the insurgency and allow U.S. troops to begin pulling out next
year.
Shiites account for about 60 percent of the country's 27 million
people, compared to 20 percent for Sunni Arabs. Both Shiite and Sunni
political leaders have said they will likely have to form a coalition
government together and both sides have expressed a willingness to do so.
Shiite Arabs and Kurds, two groups that were oppressed under the
Sunni Arab-dominated regime of Saddam Hussein, allied to form the interim
government that has ruled since last spring.
In violence overnight, a roadside bomb killed one policeman and
wounded two in the northern town of Tuz, 68 miles south of Kirkuk, police
said.
Also on Saturday, gunmen broke into a barber shop in Baladruz, about
40 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing two policemen and a civilian and
wounding the barber, police said.
 
Back
Top