At least 22 Iraqis killed, 31 wounded in Iraq violence (Roundup)

Nov 13, 2007, 14:58 GMT

Baghdad - At least 22 Iraqis were killed and 31 others wounded, including civilians, militants and policemen, in a series of incidents around conflict-torn Iraq, sources said Tuesday.

An explosive charge went off as Iraqi-US forces were inspecting the city of Baquba's Hashimiyat district, killing four Iraqi soldiers and injuring seven others, Iraqi military sources said.

Also in Baquba, a policeman and a civilian were killed and two others wounded in a blast in the Mandali area, followed by an exchange of fire between the police and gunmen, medical sources said.

Separately in eastern Baquba, three dead bodies were found shot and with signs of torture on them in Abu Saida village, forensic sources said.

Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, is 60 kilometres north-east of Baghdad.

Meanwhile, at least five Iraqi civilians and three policemen were injured, some seriously, when a roadside bomb went off targeting a police patrol in the Karrada neighbourhood of central Baghdad, independent Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency reported, citing a police source.

Separately, a car bomb went off near a Shiite mosque in Alf Dar district in eastern Baghdad, wounding two persons, the source added.

In other news, US forces killed a wanted al-Qaeda terrorist network cell leader as well as his wife and one-year-old infant in a raid in Mosul, the independent Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency reported Tuesday, citing a Nineveh police official said.

The dead man, 'who moved to the area a month ago, was an emir (leader) of a group affiliated to al-Qaeda and was on the US army's list of wanted persons,' director of the area's security operations room Abdul-Kareem al-Jaburi told VOI.

The bodies, he added, showed signs of burns and were removed to the morgue in the city.

The US military did not comment on the incident.

Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province, is about 400 kilometres north of the capital Baghdad.

In a related development, a key al-Qaeda figure was killed in a US strike on the city of Samarra in Iraq's northern Salahaddin province, a security source said Tuesday.

'Talal al-Bazi, a former Iraqi police officer holding the post of minister in the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and known to security bodies as Abu-Tiba, was killed Monday in a US helicopter strike,' a source in the Tikrit police said.

Al-Bazi was killed as he was driving from Banat al-Hasan to Mamlaha district in Samarra, according to the source.

Most al-Qaeda loyalists fled Banat al-Hasan district to areas in east Samarra following a surge in strikes launched by both the Sunni Islamic Army of Iraq and Iraqi forces, the source explained.

The Muatasim region, which together with Ishaki constituted one of the key bases for al-Qaeda, was now under the control of Iraqi troops, the police source said.

The Islamic Army of Iraq, which was once part of the Sunni insurgency against the US-led coalition army, is one of several factions now combating al-Qaeda.

Seven members of al-Qaeda have also been killed by the Islamic Army of Iraq, the source said.

Among the dead are key members, such as Hosam Bidiwi, an administrative leader, and Bakr Ahmad Rahil, who was in charge of prisons, according to the source.

The source said security forces were close to declaring the end of al-Qaeda in the province of Salahaddin as a result of strikes by US and Iraqi troops and the Islamic Army of Iraq.

Al-Qaeda fighters have been operating from bases in south-east and south-west Samarra, 120 kilometres north of Baghdad.

In south Kirkuk, 250 kilometres north of Baghdad, a police officer was killed and his wife injured when unidentified gunmen attacked their car, an Iraqi police source said.

Also in Kirkuk, the city deputy police chief Sarhad Qader escaped unscathed an assassination attempt after an explosive charge exploded as he raided villages in the west, while five policemen were wounded in the attack, the source added.

In a similar incident in Hillah city, 100 kilometres south of Baghdad, the Iskandariya region police chief Fariq al-Zamel escaped an attack by an explosive charge targeting his patrol, an Iraqi police source said.

Three security guards were wounded in the blast, the source added.

A police patrol carried the three policemen to a nearby hospital and on its way back was hit by another explosive device resulting in the death of a policeman and the injury of another, the source said.

In a separate attack in Hillah, two civilians were killed and another two injured when an explosive device detonated in the Jarf al-Sakhr area, a security source said.

One terrorist suspect was, meanwhile, killed and another 14 were detained during operations Tuesday targeting al-Qaeda in central and northern Iraq, the US military in Iraq reported.