Double-blast suicide bomber kills 8 in Iraq
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
FALLUJAH, Mar 15 (AFP): A double-blast suicide bomber targeting a military checkpoint and labourers killed eight people Monday in the former Sunni rebel bastion of Fallujah, Iraqi police and medics said.
Twenty-eight other civilians were wounded in the blasts, which occurred within minutes of each other at around 9:00 am (0600 GMT) in the centre of Fallujah, 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad, officials said.
Captain Bashar Mohammed, a police station chief in Fallujah, said the bomber parked his explosives-packed vehicle near a military checkpoint in the centre of the city.
The assailant then walked into a group of labourers and detonated his explosives vest. The car bomb exploded shortly afterwards, again without causing any military casualties.
The casualty toll of eight labourers killed and 28 civilians wounded was confirmed by Ahmed Abdul Halim, a doctor at Fallujah General Hospital, without giving a breakdown for the two attacks.
Meanwhile, Iraqi voters braved the threat of insurgent attack to turn out in their millions for this month's general election but eight days on not one of the 18 provinces has released full results.
Faraj al-Haidari, head of the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), told reporters on Sunday that early in the process, its data entry system had been unable to cope with the volume of information being inputted.
Twenty-eight other civilians were wounded in the blasts, which occurred within minutes of each other at around 9:00 am (0600 GMT) in the centre of Fallujah, 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad, officials said.
Captain Bashar Mohammed, a police station chief in Fallujah, said the bomber parked his explosives-packed vehicle near a military checkpoint in the centre of the city.
The assailant then walked into a group of labourers and detonated his explosives vest. The car bomb exploded shortly afterwards, again without causing any military casualties.
The casualty toll of eight labourers killed and 28 civilians wounded was confirmed by Ahmed Abdul Halim, a doctor at Fallujah General Hospital, without giving a breakdown for the two attacks.
Meanwhile, Iraqi voters braved the threat of insurgent attack to turn out in their millions for this month's general election but eight days on not one of the 18 provinces has released full results.
Faraj al-Haidari, head of the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), told reporters on Sunday that early in the process, its data entry system had been unable to cope with the volume of information being inputted.