Car bomb blasts kill at least 23 in Iraq

A string of car bomb blasts targeting mainly police checkpoints killed at least 23 people across Iraq on Sunday, police and hospital sources said.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Violence in Iraq has eased since its height in 2006-07 when sectarian fighting killed thousands of people, but Sunni Islamists and an al-Qaida affiliate still launch regular attacks, seeking to undermine the Shiite-led government.

The most deadly explosion took place in Taji, 20 km north of the capital Baghdad, where bombs in three parked cars went off separately, killing eight people and wounding 22.

A suicide bomber in a car blew himself up in the city of Kut, 150 km southeast of Baghdad, killing four policemen, police and local officials said.

In Baghdad, a parked car bomb killed two people in a northwestern district. Another blast near a public market in Khan Bani Saad, 30 km northeast of the capital, killed one civilian and wounded several policemen.

Two more policemen were killed when a car bomb went off in the town of Balad Ruz, 90 km northeast of Baghdad.

In Baghdad, gunmen shot dead an Interior Ministry employee in the southern Amil district and separately blew up a car bomb in the district, wounding four people, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Also in the capital, gunmen using silenced weapons wounded a police officer who was driving in the western Mansour district, the source added.

A police explosive expert was killed in the morning while he was trying to defuse a car bomb in the city of Sulaimn Pek, some 160 km north of Baghdad, a local police source said.

Separately, two roadside bombs struck a police patrol in Tarmiyah area, some 30 km north of Baghdad, wounding a policeman and a passer-by, police told Xinhua.

Prison break

The violence comes after 102 prisoners, including 47 convicted members of al-Qaida front group the Islamic State of Iraq, escaped from a prison in Tikrit, after a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb outside the jail late on Thursday.

The prison was later assaulted by gunmen and 16 security force personnel were killed in clashes.

The Interior Ministry said on Friday night that four of the fugitives had been killed and 23 captured, as Iraqi forces continue to hunt for the others.

While insurgents opposed to the Baghdad government are regarded as weaker than in the past few years, they have shown they can strike at even the most heavily protected sites in Iraq.

Targets in recent months have included prisons, police stations, the anti-

terrorism directorate in Baghdad, a military base and an entrance to Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, where the government is headquartered.

Al-Qaida front group the Islamic State of Iraq said in July that it was launching a “new military campaign aimed at recovering territory”.

AFP—Reuters—Xinhua