BAGHDAD, 9 June 2007 — Two double bomb attacks killed at least 35 people in Iraq yesterday, while overnight gunmen raided the home of a police chief, massacring his wife, brother and 12 bodyguards and seizing his children. Seven other people were killed in a series of attacks around the country raising the day’s toll to at least 42.
A twin bomb attack on a Shiite mosque near the northern oil city of Kirkuk killed at least 19 people and wounded 22, police and medical officials said. In another dual attack, near the southern Iraqi city of Basra, 16 people were killed and 32 wounded. Police said a suicide bomber detonated his explosives inside the Al-Thikalain Husseiniyah shrine in Dakuk town, south of Kirkuk, at around 1000 GMT, while at the same time a car bomb exploded outside.
Maj. Gen. Torhan Yussef, chief of Kirkuk police, said five of the 19 dead were from a single family living near the mosque in Dakuk, a town largely inhabited by Turkmen Shiites. Dr. Azad Mahmoud from Kirkuk general hospital confirmed the toll and added that 11 of the wounded were in serious condition.
The twin attacks in the south of the country targeted the town of Tis Al-Qurna, just north of Basra where British troops are based. Police and medical officials said the explosions — a bomb in a minibus at a bus station and a car bomb in a market — rocked the town at around 0330 GMT.
“First, a minibus exploded at a bus station in Al-Qurna and around the same time another car bomb exploded in a market in the town,” said First Lt. Imad Abdul Wahid of the Qurna police. “We received 16 killed and 32 wounded, including many women and children from both attacks,” said Dr. Mohammed Nawruz of Qurna hospital.
Maj. Gen. Ali Hamadi, the head of the provincial Basra emergency security committee, said the rockets and bombs had “cooked off” in the sweltering heat. The vehicle had been parked at the terminal for about 24 hours, he said.
In a separate incident west of Kirkuk, armed men killed an Iraqi army officer and his two-year-old daughter, police Lt. Mohammed Abdullah of the Hawijah police said.
The latest bloodshed comes after dozens of people were killed late on Thursday night, including 14 in a brutal raid on the home of Col. Ali Al-Jurani, chief of emergency police unit of the restive Diyala province. A distraught Jurani told AFP the attack on his house at Kan’an, south of the Diyala provincial capital Baquba, took place around 10:00 p.m. on Thursday. “Several armed men attacked my house ... and killed 14 people, including my wife, brother and my 12 bodyguards,” said Jurani.
“The attackers also kidnapped my three children — two boys and a girl.” In other violence across the province yesterday five people were killed, police said. A council member of Dura town near Baquba was shot dead along with a policeman, while two senior policemen and their driver died when a roadside bomb struck their vehicle in the Diyala town of Khan Bani Saad.
