Advertisement

Dozens killed in bombings in Iraq

 
Mourners chant anti-ISIS slogans during a funeral procession Saturday in Baghdad for a police officer killed in a suicide blast.
Mourners chant anti-ISIS slogans during a funeral procession Saturday in Baghdad for a police officer killed in a suicide blast.
Published Nov. 9, 2014

BAGHDAD — A suicide truck bomber targeting the convoy of a top Iraqi police officer killed eight people, including the ranking official, authorities said Saturday, in an attack that bore the hallmarks of militants from the Islamic State group.

The late Friday attack happened when the suicide attacker drove his bomb-laden truck into the convoy of police Lt. Gen. Faisal Malik al-Zamel, who was inspecting forces in the town of Beiji north of Baghdad, police said. The blast killed al-Zamel and seven other police officers, while wounding 15 people, hospital officials and police officers said.

On Saturday, a series of bombings in and around the capital Baghdad killed at least 43 people, with the deadliest blast hitting the city's sprawling Shiite district of Sadr City, where a car bomb tore through a commercial area, killing 11 people and wounding 21 others.

There has been an uptick in the number of bombings blamed on Sunni militants in the capital and mostly targeting Shiites, feeding sectarian tensions in the city, as the security forces of the Shiite-led government battle the Sunni militants of ISIS to the west and north of the capital. More recently, the attacks targeted Shiite pilgrims marking Ashoura, the highlight of the sect's religious calendar.