Schoolboy dies in Iraqi bomb blast

A 13-year-old Iraqi schoolboy was killed after a roadside bomb exploded in front of a school today in the city of Basra in southeast Iraq, police said.

The explosion hit as children were arriving at school.

The school week begins Sunday and runs through Thursday in Iraq, where Friday is the day of prayer for Muslims.

Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city, is 340 miles southeast of Baghdad near the Iranian border.

In the capital, a bomb exploded in front of a house in the central neighbourhood of Karradah, killing one woman and wounding two of her sisters and a man next door, police said.

Three security contractors were seriously wounded in a roadside bomb explosion in north Baghdad, and police Lt. Col. Ahmed Fadhil was being treated for multiple gunshot wounds after being attacked on his way to work, police said.