Middle East News

Blast near Baghdad college, academic killed in north (Extra)

Jun 15, 2008, 8:16 GMT

Baghdad - A bomb blast near the technical university in the centre of Baghdad left several people injured on Sunday while gunmen shot dead an academic and injured his two sons in the northern city of Mosul, according to eyewitnesses and police.

A bomb blast went off as students were entering the technical university in the industrial area in Baghdad to sit for their final exams, eyewitnesses told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The number of wounded was not immediately available.

The area has many computer shops, bookshops and restaurants.

In Mosul, 400 kilometres north of Baghdad, a university professor, Walid al-Mulla, died in a hail of bullets fired by gunmen while he was on his way to work, police told the Voices of Iraq news agency.

Two of his sons were injured, one of them is in a serious condition.

Iraqi academics along with other professionals have been targeted in the campaign of violence that engulfed the country since the US- led invasion in 2003.