Skip to main content

Bombings in Baghdad, Mosul claim 22 lives

  • Story Highlights
  • NEW: Suicide car bomb slams an Iraqi police patrol in Mosul, Iraq, killing nine
  • Earlier, a bomb tore through a pet market in Baghdad, killing 13
  • Twenty-nine people die in two al Qaeda in Iraq attacks Thursday
  • Of those, 18 die when militants attack Sunni group; 11 die in attack on Shiite village
  • Next Article in World »
Decrease font Decrease font
Enlarge font Enlarge font

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A suicide car bomb slammed an Iraqi police patrol in Mosul, Iraq, on Friday afternoon, killing nine people and wounding 21, according to a police official.

art.iraq.bombing.afp.gi.jpg

An Iraqi man surveys the site of the deadly bombing in central Baghdad on Friday.

Six of the nine killed were police, as were eight of the wounded, the official said.

Mosul is a city in Nineveh province about 260 miles (420 kilometers) north of Baghdad.

Earlier Friday, a bomb tore through a pet market in central Baghdad, killing 13 people and wounding 58 others, Iraq's Interior Ministry said.

Four police officers and 10 children were among the wounded.

The bomb had been stashed in a box and went off in the busy Al-Ghazl market, which was packed -- as usual on Fridays.

The U.S. military put the death toll at eight, and said 28 people -- including three Iraqi police -- were wounded.

On Thursday, al Qaeda in Iraq insurgents disguised as members of a Sunni alliance council attacked the council's headquarters outside Baghdad on Thursday, leaving at least 18 people dead, police said.

Another gunbattle involving al Qaeda in Iraq militants, in a Shiite village near Baquba, left 11 people dead, eight of them insurgents, police said.

The ambush at the Sunni Awakening Council's headquarters started a five-hour firefight with security guards at the council's office in the suburb of Hor Rajab, southwest of Baghdad, police said.

The Hor Rajab Awakening Council is one of several Sunni groups -- some of them former insurgent groups -- that have joined forces with U.S. and Iraqi troops. Video Watch how troops, civilians took on al Qaeda »

The Sunni groups formed the unlikely alliances to battle al Qaeda in Iraq, a Sunni militant group comprising mostly foreign fighters.

The al Qaeda in Iraq militants were dressed in Hor Rajab Awakening Council uniforms when they ambushed the headquarters and nearby checkpoints with light arms and rocket-propelled grenades, police said. The ambush came just after midnight.

At least 15 council guards were killed in the firefight and eight others were wounded, police said.

As Iraqi soldiers arrived, al Qaeda in Iraq militants fired a rocket-propelled grenade at their vehicle killing three people and wounding three others, police said.

It is unclear if any militants were killed or wounded.

In the gunbattle outside Baquba, al Qaeda in Iraq fighters attacked the Qalat al-Saffar village in Diyala province Thursday morning, police said.

Shiite villagers, backed by members of the Iraqi security forces, fought back in a two-hour gunbattle. Three civilians and eight al Qaeda fighters were killed.

In other violence:

• Mortars landed in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone as the U.S. military celebrated Thanksgiving, an Interior Ministry official said. U.S. military spokesman Lt. Justin T. Cole confirmed "an indirect fire attack on the International Zone this evening," but offered no details.

There were no initial reports of casualties. A black plume of smoke rose into the sky above the Green Zone after the 5 p.m. attack (9 a.m. ET). Insurgents frequently lob mortars and rockets into the Green Zone, but it has been more than a week since the last time. The attacks rarely result in casualties.

advertisement

• Iraqi security forces and Sunni tribal leaders found 40 decomposing bodies Wednesday in an area of Anbar province formerly controlled by al Qaeda in Iraq, an Interior Ministry official said. The bodies, which were found near Lake Tharthar, north of Ramadi, had all been shot.

• A parked car bomb detonated Thursday near an Iraqi police patrol in Mosul, killing two civilians and wounding 12 people, two of them police officers, a Mosul police official said. E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend

CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.

All About Al Qaeda in IraqBaghdadIraq War

  • E-mail
  • Save
  • Print