Bombs targeting Iraqi government, allies kill 3

[June 22, 2010]  BAGHDAD (AP) -- Bombs targeting Iraqi officials and a Sunni militia leader killed at least three people and wounded more than 12 in separate attacks in Baghdad and north of the capital, officials said.

The violence began when a roadside bomb apparently aimed at a convoy carrying a senior Transportation Ministry official missed its target and killed two bystanders instead.

The 8 a.m. blast occurred in the mainly Sunni area of Dora, a former insurgent stronghold in southern Baghdad.

Abdullah Loaebi, the director-general of the ministry's private transportation department, was unharmed, but police and hospital officials said two people were killed and eight others wounded.

A bomb attached to a car carrying the leader of an anti-al-Qaida Sunni group later exploded in Buhriz, a former Saddam Hussein stronghold about 35 miles (60 kilometers) north of Baghdad in Diyala province.

Maj. Ghalib al-Karkhi, a police spokesman for Diyala, said the blast killed Raad al-Mujamai, the leader of the so-called Awakening Council in a nearby village.

A motorcycle bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol exploded in the Diyala provincial capital of Baqouba, wounding eight civilians. A roadside bomb also struck near the office of a Shiite religious party in Baghdad, wounding 10 people, including eight guards, according to police and hospital officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information.

Senior bureaucrats and other government officials as well as members of Iraq's security forces have frequently been targeted by insurgents seeking to destabilize the country as U.S. forces prepare for a full withdrawal from Iraq by the end of next year.

The number of attacks has declined sharply since local tribal leaders revolted against al-Qaida in Iraq in late 2006 and 2007. Fears are high, however, that frustration over a political deadlock following the March 7 parliamentary elections could stoke new violence.

There have been a series of high profile bombings in the city since August, killing hundreds of people and raising questions about the preparedness of Iraq's security forces to take over from the Americans.

[Associated Press; By SAAD ABDUL-KADIR]

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