A political leader of Iraqi Turkoman minority on Thursday escaped a mortar attack on his house and eight people were wounded in separate bomb attacks in Iraq's northern city of Kirkuk and Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said, Xinhua reported.
A mortar round landed in the early morning on the house of Arshad al-Salihi, a Member of Parliament and head of a political group represents the Iraqi Turkoman minority, destroying part of his house, a local security source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Salihi and his family escaped the attack unharmed, the source said.
Salihi is also a member of the secular parliamentary bloc of Iraqia, headed by the former prime minister Ayad Allawi, which won most of the parliament seats in March 7 elections last year.
Hours later, two people were wounded in central Kirkuk when a roadside bomb struck the convoy of Major General Jamal Tahir, a chief police in Kirkuk, while he was visiting the house of Arshad al-Salihi which was attacked by a mortar round earlier in the day, the source added.
The oil-rich Kirkuk province and its capital Kirkuk City, some 250 km north of Baghdad, are part of the disputed areas between the Kurds and both Arabs and Turkomans. The area has long been the hotbed of insurgency since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
In Baghdad, a roadside bomb struck a vehicle belonging to the Ministry of National Security in al-Ghazaliyah district in western the capital, wounding two ministry employees aboard, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Iraqi security forces rushed to the site of the first blast, but another roadside bomb exploded near their vehicles and wounded two policemen and a soldier, the source said.
In a separate incident, a bomb detonated at a liquor store in Bab al-Sharji district in downtown Baghdad, wounding a civilian and damaging the store, the source said.
In eastern Baghdad, a roadside bomb went off near a U.S. military convoy in Baladiyat district, the source said without giving further details.
The U.S. military did not confirm the incident yet.
Violence and sporadic high-profile bomb attacks continue in the Iraqi cities despite the dramatic decrease of violence over the last three years.
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