Car bomb kills 13 outside Iraqi restaurant

[September 14, 2011]  BAGHDAD (AP) -- A car bombing Wednesday morning killed 13 people and wounded scores of others in southern Iraq as the blast went off outside a restaurant where local police were having breakfast, officials said.

The bombing was the deadliest in a day that had already claimed more lives. In all, 17 people were killed -- at least six of them Iraqi soldiers or police -- by midmorning and more than 50 people were wounded.

Insurgents often target Iraqi soldiers and police who have been trained by American troops, labeling them as traitors.

The attacks also reveal how vulnerable Iraqi forces remain with just under four months before U.S. troops are scheduled to leave the country after more than eight years of war.

Those killed at the restaurant included two policemen, said Dr. Zuhair al-Khafaji of the Hillah hospital, where the injured and dead were taken. Four policemen were also among the 41 wounded in the explosion, which took place shortly before 8 a.m. n the town of al-Shumali, just south of Hillah and about 55 miles (90 kilometers) south of Baghdad.

The town is a popular resting place for Shiite pilgrims headed to the holy shrine of the Imam al-Hamza, about three miles (four kilometers) south of the town.

A police official at the scene put the death toll at 11 and confirmed 41 were wounded. Conflicting death tolls are common immediately after large attacks in Iraq.

Earlier Wednesday, gunmen opened fire on a security patrol in a mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhood in northeastern Baghdad. The gunmen escaped after killing two policemen and injuring a third, according to a police official and a medic at Baghdad city hospital.

And a half-hour after the blast in al-Shumali, two Iraqi army soldiers were killed and 11 wounded by a bomb hidden on a minibus they were riding in near the town of Habbaniyah, 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Baghdad.

The soldiers were heading to a training area inside their camp, according to a senior army officer and a police official based in Anbar province, where the strike happened.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to release the information.

[Associated Press; By SAAD ABDUL-KADIR and SAMEER N. YACOUB]

Associated Press writers Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Lara Jakes contributed to this report.

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