Drive-by shootings, bombings kill 10, injure 31 across Iraq despite overall drop in attacks

Shootings, bombings across Iraq kill 10, injure 31

BAGHDAD — Drive-by shootings and a spate of bombings killed 11 people and wounded dozens more Sunday in fresh reminders of persistent violence across Iraq despite an overall drop in attacks nationwide.

At least 30 people were injured in separate and apparently unrelated attacks, Iraqi police hospitals officials said. Five of the dead were Iraqi police and security forces.

In the most gruesome example, gunmen opened fire on worshippers as they were leaving dawn prayers in town of Jurf al-Sakhr just south of the capital, killing three and wounding one, said Maj. Muthana Khalid, the spokesman for Babil province police.The attack occurred at about 4:00 a.m.

Worshippers converge in high numbers to mosques during the holy month of Ramadan — a period devoted to prayer and dawn-to-dusk fasting.

Hours later, rush-hour bombings across Baghdad hit commuters on their way to work, killing four and injuring at least 16.

The deadliest strike came when a roadside bomb exploded next to a minibus heading from the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City into downtown that killed three people, including a police officer, a police officer said.

Nine others were wounded in the attack which occurred at about 7:15 a.m. A hospital worker confirmed the casualties.

Few minutes earlier, three bombs planted a few yards (meters) away from each other in a downtown business district blew up simultaneously. Police and hospital officials said a bystander was killed and seven injured.

Another roadside bomb targeted a traffic police patrol in eastern Baghdad, killing one and injuring eight people, a police officer said. Two traffic policemen were among the wounded.

Traffic police, many of whom are unarmed, have become a new target for attackers. More than a dozen have been killed in shootings and bombings across Iraq recently.

An attempted assassination of a senior police official from the northern Ninevah province visiting Baghdad killed one of his bodyguards and wounded another when a bomb attached to his car exploded in the southern Dora neighborhood.

Meanwhile, gunmen in a speeding car attacked an Iraqi army check point in Ninevah provincial capital Mosul, killing one soldier and injuring another, local police said.

A bomb attached to the car of a local commander of an anti-al-Qaida militia in the western Baghdad suburb of Abu Ghraib exploded, killing him and wounding two of his bodyguards.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

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Associated Press Writers Hamid Ahmed and Lara Jakes contributed to this report.