25 killed in Baghdad attacks

2005-05-05 07:48

Baghdad - Twenty five people were killed in a series of attacks on Thursday in Baghdad, including nine policemen shot to death in their squad cars and 15 men who died in a bomb explosion at an army recruitment centre, an interior ministry official said.

In addition a guard was killed in an attack on the home of a deputy defence minister in the capital, the official told AFP.

The attacks followed a suicide bombing on Wednesday against a police recruitment centre in the Kurdish city of Arbil, in northern Iraq, which killed some 50 people and injured close to 100.

In one attack in the south of the capital at about 06:00 (02H00 GMT), gunmen opened fire on two police cars, killing six policemen. They then burned the cars.

In a second attack, gunmen opened fire on two other police cars in eastern Baghdad, killing three policemen. Three other policemen managed to flee.

And a suicide bomber, driving a car, detonated his explosives at around 08:00 (04H00 GMT) outside an army recruiting post in the centre of Baghdad, the official said.

Since Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari's partial cabinet line up was announced a week ago, at least 225 people, both civilians and members of the security forces, have been killed in Iraq.

- AFP