12 more die in Iraq - but a violence drop in Baghdad (2nd Roundup)

Aug 27, 2008, 18:56 GMT

Baghdad - At least 12 people were killed and 41 injured in separate explosions in Iraq on Wednesday - while violence in the capital was reported to be far lower than two years before.

Security sources and witnesses told Deutsche Presse Agentur dpa that three policemen died and seven were injured after three bombs exploded as police and army patrols were passing west of Baquba.

Iraqi forces arrested six people suspected of being involved in the blast in the northern city.

In another incident, five members of the same family, including a child, died when an explosive device detonated beside their car, sources added.

Also in the north, 14 civilians were injured Wednesday in a suicide bombing in a suburb of the Iraqi city of Talafar, a military source in Nineveh province said.

The Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency reported that the suicide bomber was driving a car when he blew himself up in a residential neighborhood. The blast has damaged several shops.

The spokesman for Baghdad Operations Command, General Qassim Atta, meanwhile said violence in the Iraqi capital had fallen to its lowest level in two years.

'Military operations have dropped by 89 per cent in August 2008, compared to the same month of 2007 and 2006,' Atta said in a press conference at the convention centre in Baghdad.

Atta noted that this drop shows that terrorist and outlawed groups were defeated.

Earlier on Wednesday, two civilians were killed and 20 wounded in three blasts in different Baghdad districts, US military and police said.

In the first blast, a civilian was killed and seven were injured in a car bomb attack in al-Jadieda district in southeastern Baghdad, a police source who spoke on condition of anonymity told the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency.

A second explosion caused by a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad killed a civilian and wounded seven other people near the national theatre in al-Karada district.

A third blast struck a police patrol, leaving three police and three civilians wounded, VOI reported.

In Diyala province, one bomber was shot dead and another detonated his explosives as the troops approached, killing himself but causing no other casualties, the military said. Diyala is a stronghold of the al-Qaeda in Iraq terrorist network.