Baghdad - XINHUA
Up to 15 people were killed and 65 wounded in shootings and bomb attacks, including seven car bombings, across Iraq on Thursday, the police said. In Baghdad, five car bombs and two roadside bombs ripped through the Iraqi capital and killed a total of nine people and wounded some 52. One of the bombings was carried out by a suicide bomber who drove his explosive-laden car into an Iraqi army patrol in the northern district of Adhamiyah, killing a soldier and wounding six, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. Two of the car bombings hit al-Bunoug district in the northeastern part of the capital, killing five people and wounding 20 others. Two other car bombs struck Karrada district in the southern part of Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 16, while two roadside bombs exploded in Saidiyah and Baladiyat districts in southern and eastern Baghdad respectively, wounding a total of 10 people. In northern Iraq, a booby-trapped car detonated in the town of Tal Afar, some 430 km northwest of Baghdad, killing four civilians and wounding eight more, a local police source anonymously told Xinhua. In western Iraq, a car bomb parked near the entrance of the local government compound in Anbar\'s provincial capital of Ramadi, some 110 km west of Baghdad, detonated in the morning near a convoy of vehicles carrying the provincial governor Qassim al- Fahdawi. Al-Fahdawi, who was heading to his work in the compound, escaped the blast unharmed, but the huge explosion destroyed one of his vehicles and wounded two of his bodyguards aboard and three bystanders. In a separate incident, two border policemen were shot dead by gunmen who ambushed their vehicle on the main highway in the desert area between Ramadi and Jordan. Thursday attacks are part of almost daily waves of massive bomb attacks in Baghdad and some Iraqi cities that killed and wounded hundreds of people. On Wednesday, bombings and clashes in the country killed at least 26 people and wounded some 80 others. Violence is still common in Iraqi cities despite a dramatic decrease since its peak in 2006 and 2007, when the country was engulfed in sectarian killings.