Winks Blog

At Least 20 People Killed, 8 Corpses Found

Good Morning,

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Bombings and shootings Friday killed at least 20 people around Iraq, while President Jalal Talabani issued a decree ordering the new parliament to hold its first session on March 19.

A suicide truck bomb ripped through a line of vehicles waiting at a checkpoint Friday in Fallujah, killing at least seven civilians. Authorities in the capital discovered the bodies of six men who were blindfolded, handcuffed and shot in the back of the head, police said.

Car bombs killed three people in Samarra, where an attack on a Shiite shrine last month ignited nearly two weeks of sectarian violence.

A bomb hit a U.S. tank in east Baghdad, setting it afire and blowing off the treads, police said. The American military said the M1A2 Abrams tank hit a roadside bomb and the crew escaped unharmed.

A policeman in Tikrit died disarming a roadside bomb when a second explosive device detonated, also wounding two others.

In Samarra, where a Feb. 22 mosque bombing of a Shiite shrine ignited violence that killed about 500 people, two car bombs killed three people, including the imam at a Sunni Muslim mosque, and wounded five, police said. One bomb targeted police but killed a civilian. The other bomb, near the Sunni Qiba mosque, killed the preacher and another person.

In the Fallujah attack, the bomber detonated his explosives as large numbers of cars were waiting to pass through the security checkpoint going into the city, 40 miles west of Baghdad, said police Lt. Mohammed Taha. Two of the wounded were police.

The eight corpses were found in two suburbs east of Baghdad, said police Capt. Maher Hammad Mousa. Four of them, men between the ages of 30 and 35, were found on the street in the Fudhailiya suburb shortly after dawn. The other two, men between the ages of 40 and 45, were discovered in the Kamaliya region shortly afterward. None of the bodies bore identification. The bodies of two more bullet-riddled men _ one of whom also had his throat slit _ were brought to the morgue in Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, officials said.

Have a nice day.

posted by Wink @ 9:51 AM