Suicide bombing attacks targeting a police checkpoint and a Shiite procession in western and central Iraq on Sunday killed up to 13 people, including six policemen and a journalist. The violence comes days before the climax of the Shiite commemoration ceremony of Ashura on Friday.
In the western city of Ramadi, a suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives near Anbar provincial government offices, killing 11 people, including six policemen, a source told AFP. The explosion occurred at around 10:00 am (0700 GMT) at a police checkpoint in the centre of the city, 100 kilometres west of Baghdad, and left 41 people injured, according to police Major Rahim Zabin from Ramadi hospital.
Among the dead were six police and a cameraman for local satellite television channel al-Anbar TV. A woman was also killed in the explosion, while women and children were among the injured.
Meanwhile, in the city of Baquba, capital of Diyala province to Baghdad's north, two people died and three others hurt when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden vest near a Shiite procession, according to police Major Furat al-Dulaimi.
