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Death toll rises to 16 in Baghdad Sunni district attacks

29 July 2010 18:43 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The death toll from the attacks in Baghdad’s northern Sunni district has risen to 16 on Thursday, and 14 others were injured, an Interior Ministry source said, APA reports quoting Xinhua News Agency.

"Our latest reports said that 16 were killed, including six soldiers and three policemen, by the coordinated attacks in Adhamiyah district," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

On Thursday afternoon, a group of gunmen stormed an Iraqi army checkpoint in Adhamiyah, and shot dead three soldiers, the source said.

The attack was followed by five bomb explosions which ripped through the district successively, killing three more soldiers, three policemen and seven civilians, the source added.

Seven policemen and seven civilians were wounded by the attacks, he said, adding that several civilian cars, shops and buildings were damaged.

The five blasts targeted some of the police checkpoints and their foot patrols in different part of the district, the source said.

Earlier, the source put the toll at six killed and 14 injured by the gunfire and bomb attacks in the district.

Adhamiyah is a Sunni enclave surrounded by Shiite neighborhoods, which has long been a stronghold for Sunni insurgents fighting the U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

However, the enclave has been calm for more than two years since some Sunni insurgents turned to fight the Qaida militants who carried out indiscriminate killings against both Shiite and Sunni communities in Iraq.

Earlier in the day, the police said seven people were killed and 24 others were injured in separate attacks in central and northern Iraq, including a suicide truck bomb targeting an Iraqi military base in Sherqat town of Salahudin province.

Attacks are still common in Iraqi cities as part of recent deterioration in security which shaped a setback to the efforts of the Iraqi government to restore normalcy in the country more than four months after violence-torn Iraq held parliamentary elections on March 7.