Baghdad: 14 people, including six Shiite worshippers, were killed in a spate of attacks across Iraq today, despite ramped up security for Christmas and Shiite rituals for Ashur
Also among the dead were three teachers in northern Iraq
and a Kurdish peshmerga security force member while dozens of
others were wounded.
In the eastern Baghdad district of Sadr City, six people
were killed and 26 others wounded when a roadside bomb struck
a procession to mark Ashura, Defence and Interior Ministry
officials said on condition of anonymity.
Most of the casualties were children, some under the age
of 13, the officials said.
The afternoon attack came just days ahead of the climax
on Sunday of the 10-day rituals to commemorate Ashura, which
marks the killing of Shiite Imam Hussein by armies of the
Sunni caliph Yazid in 680 AD.
In the northern restive city of Mosul, meanwhile, three
teachers, who were working with Iraq`s census authorities,
were found shot dead, according to a police officer who did
not want to be named.
Also in Mosul one civilian was killed and another was
wounded by a bomb targeting a police patrol in the centre of
the city while in the western part of town police said they
found the corpse of a strangled woman.
Meanwhile, in the central province of Diyala, two
brothers of Mustafa al-Azawi, the Sunni Arab mayor of the town
of Mansuriyah, were found dead after they were kidnapped on
Friday morning, police said.
PTI
