Iraq: Suicide car bomb kills three police officers

A suicide car bomb exploded at a checkpoint leading to a police station in Kirkuk today, killing three Iraqi policemen and wounding 30 people, police said.

The blast, which occurred in the centre of the oil-rich city, 180 miles north of Baghdad, was the latest in an increase in violence in northern Iraq even as the government and US forces prepare to launch a massive security operation aimed at stopping sectarian attacks in Baghdad.

The wounded included policemen and civilians, police Brig. Sarhad Qadi said, giving the casualty toll.

In southern Iraq, meanwhile, a roadside bomb struck British forces, lightly wounding two, in Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city, 340 miles south-east of Baghdad, according to the Ministry of Defence.

Gunmen also attacks a British convoy as it approached a bridge in Basra last night, leaving one soldier wounded, British spokeswoman Katie Brown said.

Violence also persisted in the Baghdad area.

A mortar attack struck a residential area in Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of the capital, killing a woman and wounding 10 other people, police said.

Police also said they found the body of an Iraqi policeman whose hands and legs had been bound hanging by electric wire, two days after he was kidnapped while going to his home in the same area south of the capital.

Gunmen in a car also opened fire on two brothers, ages 30 and 35, on their way to work as construction workers in Mahaweel, 35 miles south of Baghdad, killing one and wounding the other, police said.

In the capital, a roadside bomb struck in a commercial district in downtown Baghdad, wounding a policeman and a bystander, according to police.

The violence resumed a day after 142 Iraqis were killed or found dead in what appeared to be a renewed campaign of Sunni insurgent violence against Shiite targets.

Police also raised the casualty toll in yesterday’s bombing of the al-Mustansiriyah University in Baghdad to 70 killed and 133 wounded.

The sharp surge in deadly attacks coincided with the release of UN figures that showed an average of 94 civilians died each day in sectarian bloodshed in 2006.