Insurgents kill 45 ahead of Iraq referendum

INSURGENTS determined to wreck Iraq’s constitutional referendum killed nearly 45 people and wounded dozens in a series of attacks yesterday, including a suicide car bomb that ripped apart a crowded market in a town near the Syrian border, police said.

US and Iraqi officials had repeatedly warned insurgents would step up their attacks to undermine Saturday’s referendum.

In the deadliest attack in Iraq in nearly two weeks, a suicide car bomb exploded in a crowded open market in the north-western town of Tal Afar, killing 30 Iraqis and wounding 45, said Brigadier Najim Abdullah, Tal Afar’s police chief.