Iraqi governor survives bomb attack, 2 others killed
The governor of the Iraqi district of Niniveh survived an assassination attempt in the city of Mosul on Sunday, but two other people were killed in the explosions and nine others injured, police said.
In other bombings and attacks across the country an additional 14 people were killed and 20 injured. They followed massive blasts in the southern city of Basra late on Saturday which left 45 dead, though the cause for that blast was still being investigated.
The assassination attempt in Mosul, around 400 km north of Baghdad, saw two bombs target Governor, Mr Atheel al-Najifi's convoy in the centre of the city. The area is ethnically diverse and is a regular scene of militant attacks.
In the eastern part of the city, three policemen were killed in clashes with militants, police said, while in the Al-Wahda neighbourhood, a bomb killed one man and injured his wife.
Iraq's western region also saw attacks and seven people were killed and eight others injured by a suicide bomber driving an explosives laden car in the city of Ramadi, around 120 km outside Baghdad.
A produce market in a southern neighbourhood of Baghdad experienced Sunday a car bomb explosion which killed one person, witnesses said. Separately, four people including a traffic policeman were injured by a blast in a northern area of Baghdad.
In central Fallujah, some 60 km west of the capital, two people were killed and seven others injured by a car bomb which exploded inside a parking garage, security officials in the city said.
The injured were taken to a nearby hospital.
Iraq had seen a decline in attacks in 2008, following massive military operations against insurgents. In recent months, however, the number of attacks by militants has risen, leading to a particularly high death toll in July and in the first week of this
month.
The US President, Mr Barack Obama, has confirmed that plans to withdraw US combat troops from Iraq by the end of August are on schedule. A transitional training and advisory force of around 50,000 troops is to remain behind and is also to carry out some anti-insurgency operations.
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