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40 killed in spate of attacks across Iraq

02 June 2014 18:10 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. total of 40 people were killed and 92 others wounded in separate bombings and shootings across Iraq on Monday, while up to 17 civilians died in a deadly accident of a river tour in southern part of the country, security and medical sources said.

The heaviest casualties during the day occurred in the militant- seized city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, when up to 22 people were killed and 36 others wounded during the past 24 hours by airstrikes, artillery and mortar shelling on several neighborhoods in the city, a medical source from the city hospital told Xinhua.

Clashes erupted in the morning between Iraqi forces and anti- government militants, some believed to be linked to the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant, an al-Qaida breakaway group in Iraq, in north of Fallujah, leaving at least three policemen killed and six others wounded, a source from Anbar provincial police told Xinhua.

Separately, a fierce clash took place in south of Fallujah between gunmen and an army force backed by helicopter gunships, left seven militants killed, the source said.

Near Baghdad, a suicide bomber drove his explosive-laden car into a police checkpoint and blew it up in the town of Tarmiyah, some 40 km north of Baghdad, killing two policemen and wounding five others, a local police source said on condition of anonymity.

In Iraq's northern province of Nineveh, Major Ahmed Nabil, commander of a security force tasked with protecting the governor of the province, was shot dead by gunmen in front of his house in al-Arabi district in northern the provincial capital city of Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, a provincial police source told Xinhua.

In a separate incident, a police force clashed with gunmen who tried to attack the checkpoint in southern Mosul and killed one of the attackers, the source said.

A member of a police commando force was critically wounded when gunmen attacked his military base in western Mosul, the source added.

In addition, three children from one family were wounded when a mortar round hit their house in the town of Shora, some 40 km south of Mosul, the source said.

Also in the day, a car bomb detonated at a popular market in Askari district in the holy Shiite city of Najaf, some 160 km south of Baghdad, leaving at least two people killed and some 20 others wounded, a local police source told Xinhua.

In a separate incident, two people were killed and nine others wounded when a booby-trapped car went off at a marketplace in the town of Iskandriyah, some 50 km south of Baghdad, a local police source told Xinhua.

Iskandriyah is part of an area once known as the Triangle of Death during the years that followed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. It was a hotbed of insurgency against the U.S. troops and still later against Iraqi security forces. The town is one of a cluster of Sunni towns scattered in north of the predominantly Shiite province of Babil.

A third car bomb exploded in the city of Nasriyah, some 375 km south of Baghdad, and wounded 12 people along with damaging several nearby civilian cars, a local police source said.

Meanwhile, Nasriyah the capital of Dhi-Qar province was the scene of a deadly accident when up to 17 people died and two children went missing during a river tour when their boat sank in Euphrates River in the city, spokesman of provincial Civil Defense police said in the morning.

The accident occurred late on Sunday night when families were celebrating a religious event on the boat in the river that pass through Nasriyah, Brigadier General Karim Sarhan told reporters.

"The latest reports said that 17 people drowned, most were women and children, and two children went missing, when a boat carrying families drowned during tour in the river last night," Sarhan added.

The boat was carrying a total of 29 people, four of them were injured and six others survived in the incident, Sarhan said, adding a rescue team and divers continued their effort during the day in an attempt to retrieve the bodies of the missing children.