New wave of bombings kills 29 in Iraq

Suicide bombers have attacked an Iraqi police station killing eight officers in the deadliest of a series of attacks across across the country that killed at least 29 people.

No-one claimed responsibility for the attacks, but they bore all the hallmarks of al-Qaida and other Sunni militant groups.

The bombings were the latest episode in a wave of violence that has rocked Iraq since a security crackdown in April on a protest camp in a northern Sunni town.

They started with an attack in the town of Beiji, a former insurgent stronghold 150 miles north of Baghdad, where a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into the main gate of the town police station.

The blast paved the way for three other suicide bombers, who were on foot, to storm inside and blow themselves up in the building. Eight policemen were killed and five wounded.

Later several bombings hit different parts of Baghdad, killing 21 people and wounding 58, police.

The deadliest of the attacks in the Iraqi capital was in the southeastern Bayaa district where a parked car bomb killed six civilians and wounded 12.

Another parked car bomb went off in the central Salhia neighborhood near the heavily fortified Green Zone where key government offices and foreign embassies are located. That killed five civilians and wounded 14.

Four civilians were killed and 11 were wounded when a parked car bomb exploded at an outdoor market in Baghdad’s central Sadriyah neighborhood. A bomb went off near a bus station in the nearby al-Nahda area, killing three people and wounding seven. Another bomb in the eastern suburb of Hussainiyah killed one civilian and wounded seven.

And two other civilians were killed and seven wounded in a car bomb explosion in the southeastern suburb of Jisr Diyala.

Medical officials confirmed the figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to media.

The bombings came a day after militant attacks killed at least 20 people in Iraq. At least 253 people have died in attacks across the country so far this month.