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37 wounded in attacks across Iraq

From Jomana Karadsheh, CNN
A firefighter douses a car with water Saturday after one of three car bombings in Kirkuk, Iraq.
A firefighter douses a car with water Saturday after one of three car bombings in Kirkuk, Iraq.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • NEW:At least 27 are wounded after three car bombs detonate in Kirkuk, Iraq
  • NEW: The blasts apparently targeted the homes of Kurdish officials
  • NEW: 10 people are wounded in attacks in the nation's capital
  • The Interior Ministry says three rockets struck Baghdad's International Zone
RELATED TOPICS
  • Car Bombings
  • Kirkuk

Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) -- At least 37 people were wounded Saturday in attacks in the Iraqi capital and the northern city of Kirkuk, authorities said.

Police said 27 people were wounded after three car bombs detonated in Kirkuk Saturday.

The car bombs detonated in close succession in predominantly Kurdish parts of the city, local police said. The blasts appeared to be targeting the homes of Kurdish officials in different parts of the city, police and Interior Ministry officials said.

The ethnically mixed Kirkuk is a top disputed territory between the central government in Baghdad and the semi-autonomous Kurdish regional government in the north.

Separately, at least 10 others were wounded in attacks in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

Seven people, including two civilians, were wounded when a roadside bomb went off in the western part of the city, the Interior Ministry said. The blast occurred after another bomb explosion set a liquor store ablaze. The roadside bomb detonated as emergency officials responded to the scene.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, two traffic officers were wounded when a rocket struck a busy area in the center of the city, the Interior Ministry said. Also, a bomb attached to a civilian vehicle detonated, wounding the driver.

And three rockets struck Baghdad's heavily fortified International Zone on Saturday morning, according to Iraq's Interior Ministry. There were no reports of casualties or damage.

The International Zone, formerly known as the Green Zone, houses Iraqi government offices and the U.S. Embassy.

While the widespread daily violence across Iraq has dropped over the past two years, more than 150 Iraqis have been killed in attacks over the past week.

On Tuesday, 64 people were killed and hundreds were wounded in more than a dozen bombings that struck mostly Shiite parts of the capital.

Tuesday's bombings were among the largest scale attacks since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Seventeen Baghdad neighborhoods were struck by more than a dozen bombs, most of which were car bombs.

And at least 58 people died in the siege of a Baghdad church on Sunday by fighters affiliated with al Qaeda in Iraq -- one of the worst attacks of the war against Iraq's dwindling Christian minority.