Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Blasts kill at least 34 in Iraq

AP - Three blasts killed at least 34 Iraqis on Tuesday, most of them in a suicide car bombing that struck a group of police recruits, officials said. It was one of the highest daily casualty tolls in recent months.

Two of the bombs went off in Diyala province, which has been the site of much of the recent violence and a stronghold of Sunni insurgents.

In the provincial town of Jalula, an assailant drove a car towards a building where new police recruits had assembled, said Colonel Ahmed Mahmoud Khalifa, the local police chief.

The car approached the building but was stopped by guards. The driver then detonated the explosives, the chief said. He said 25 people were killed and 40 wounded.

Local police have been forming an emergency response force in the region, with each tribal sheik allowed to send a certain number of recruits. Monday was the last day of recruitment, and applicants came to the police centre on Tuesday to check whether they had been accepted, Khalifa said.

After the blast, security forces imposed a curfew on Jalula, about 80 miles north-east of Baghdad.

Elsewhere in Diyala, a roadside bomb struck a van carrying a Sunni family near the town of Mandali along the Iranian border, said Colonel Sarchal Abdul-Karim, a spokesman of Iraqi border guards in the area............

No comments: