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Two
car bombs have exploded in the northern Iraqi town
of Tal Afar, causing heavy loss of life.
Officials said at least 20 people were killed in the
attack, and others were trapped as a building
collapsed.
The attacks came at the end of a day of violence in
Iraq, that included bomb attacks on a mosque and a
restaurant, which killed at least 24 other people.
In another incident, the commander of a new unit set
up to fight insurgents was shot dead in the capital,
Baghdad.
The bombs in Tal Afar went off outside the home of a
community leader, Hassan Baktash, who has links with
Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party.
The explosion brought the building crashing down.
"I don't have a final number for the dead or wounded
but it's between 20 and 30," a police source told
Reuters, adding "some are still trapped."
Elsewhere, a car bomb exploded outside a Shia mosque
in Mahmoudiya, a town south of Baghdad. At least
seven people were killed and more than 20 injured.
Doctors said many of the casualties were children.
"The kids were playing outside the mosque when a car
came up quickly and then exploded," said a witness,
Mohammed Awad.
Customers hit
Earlier on Monday, another car bomb went off outside
the popular Habayibna restaurant in the Shia-dominated
Talibiya area of Baghdad.
The attack came during a busy time for the
restaurant.
At least eight people were killed in the blast and
as many as 100 were injured. Several cars parked
outside were set ablaze.
In Tuz Khurmatu in northern Iraq, a car bomb
exploded killing five and wounding 13 others.
The attack happened near the council offices in the
town, 88km (55 miles) south of Kirkuk, police said.
In central Iraq, two suicide bombers detonated car
bombs outside a military base in the town of Samarra,
95km (60 miles) north of Baghdad.
A third attacker approached the base carrying
explosives and was shot by soldiers, the US military
said.
Iraqi police said two Iraqi men were killed and six
wounded, including women and children. The US
military said three soldiers sustained injuries that
were not life threatening.
In Baghdad, Iraqi officials said Wael Rubaie, head
of operations at the Ministry for National Security,
and his driver were killed on their way to work.
Maj Gen Rubaie had been recently appointed to
command a special operations room set up to
co-ordinate the fight against insurgents across all
Iraqi ministries and with the US-led multinational
force.
More than 550 people have been killed in Iraq in
less than a month.
www.krg.org
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