Another bloody day in Iraq

2006-05-16 22:45

Baghdad - A shooting and car bombing at a packed Baghdad market killed 23 people on Tuesday, while at least 26 Iraqis died in other violence around the country, officials said.

Several women and children were among the dead in the market attack that targeted a mixed Sunni-Shi'ite area of the capital that also left 38 people wounded, an interior ministry source said.

A group of gunmen pulled up to the market in a pair of minibuses in the al-Shaab district and opened fire on a bus stop, killing five people, before making their getaway in one of the vehicles.

The other minibus exploded when bystanders came to the aid of the injured, killing another 18.

In other attacks, six people were shot dead at an interior ministry checkpoint in southern Baghdad when it was attacked by gunmen, an interior ministry source said.

Five people, including two policemen and a woman, died in a shooting in the northern city of Mosul when gunmen attacked their taxi.

Four employees of an Iraqi military base were killed when their bus came under gun attack as it left the base in Taji, north of Baghdad.

In the restive area of Yusifiyah, southwest of the capital, another car bomb killed four civilians.

A college dean died along with two bodyguards when his car was ambushed by gunmen in the Sunni neighbourhood of Adhamiyah, in north Baghdad.

In the ethnically mixed northern city of Kirkuk, two brothers, both of them police officers, were killed by gunmen as they drove to work.

In Ramadi, two people were killed in separate shootings.

The authorities also found seven corpses in different areas of Iraq, including the body of a police officer reported kidnapped on Monday.

Meanwhile, the US military said a roadside bomb killed one of its soldiers while on foot patrol in southern Baghdad and that two others died in a similar attack on Monday near Balad to the north.

- AFP