Iraq violence kills at least 33 people

ACROSS Iraq, bombings and shootings killed at least 33 people yesterday.

Ten people were killed in a spate of shootings in the southern, predominantly Shi’ite city of Basra.

Gunmen in both police and civilian vehicles gunned down victims including four students outside the city’s university and a well-known doctor who was leaving her house, said a Basra police captain.

In Karmah, west of Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed five Iraqi soldiers, police Lieutenant Ahmed Ali said.

Gunmen stormed into the house of a Shi’ite family in Balad Ruz, 72 kilometres north-east of Baghdad, killing the mother and four adult sons and injuring the father.

Two policemen in a patrol car were killed by gunmen in a passing car in the centre of the western city of Fallujah, police Lt Husam Mohammed said.

In the northern city of Mosul, gunmen killed a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

Two suicide car bombers also blew themselves up in a botched attack near the police academy in Kirkuk.

In another attack three city council guards were shot dead by unknown gunmen while refuelling at gas station in Samarra, north of Baghdad.

A mortar round that landed near the city’s public hospital killed a 12-year-old boy and injured five others. And gunmen attacked a facility belonging to the electricity distributor in the town of Hillah, south of Baghdad, killing a technician and wounding five guards.

Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein yesterday accused prosecution witnesses in his genocide trial of sowing division for the benefit of Israel after they testified that his regime’s forces detained Kurds in camps where hundreds died of malnutrition.

The ex-president also lashed out at the chief prosecutor, who charged that Saddam ran a police state that kept no records of detainees and camps.