The blast wounded six other people, including four soldiers
who were stationed outside the Fallujah mosque to protect worshippers,
according to a senior city police official.
The unit’s commander, an army colonel, was among the dead,
the official said.
A local health official confirmed the casualties. Both
officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to
release the information.
The mosque is near a government compound that houses offices
for Fallujah’s mayor, city council, police and courts.
Fallujah, 65 km west of Baghdad in Anbar province, was once
a capital for Iraq’s insurgency and the site of two deadly battles in 2004 with
American forces. Those fights were triggered by the horrific deaths of four US
contractors who were killed and mutilated in Fallujah, and their charred bodies
dragged through the streets before two of them were hung from a bridge.
Today Fallujah is a gritty city near a major Iraqi highway
that is beset with occasional bursts of violence.
Extremist attacks have dropped dramatically from just a few
years ago, when scores of daily killing between Iraqis’ insurgents and militias
brought the country to the brink of civil war. But deadly bombings and
shootings still happen every day across the country.
Also Friday, hundreds of anti-government protesters rallied
in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square and in Sulaimaniyah, one of the three provinces of
autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq’s north, demanding better government
services, an end to corruption and more jobs.
In Sulaimaniyah, 10 people were wounded, including four riot
policemen, in a stone-throwing melee.
