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At least 26 killed, 32 wounded in Iraq violence

Other News Materials 19 March 2008 19:49 (UTC +04:00)

(dpa) - At least 26 people were killed and 32 wounded in separate attacks across Iraq, US military and police and media reports said Wednesday.

In Baquba, 60 kilometres north of Baghdad, five people were killed Wednesday and 16 wounded when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives belt in a public market, Iraqi police told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Police told dpa that the suicide bombing might have been carried out by a female attacker.

The bomb also damaged nearby stores in the market.

Another suicide bomb left 11 Iraqi soldiers and three civilians wounded in the northern city of Mosul, the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency said.

Security sources told VOI that a suicide bomber detonated his vehicle, targeting an Iraqi patrol in the Intisar district of Mosul.

In another development, some 17 border guards have been shot dead by gunmen in different areas in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, police sources told dpa.

The killings occurred over the last 24 hours.

The sources did not say whether the killings were carried out by the same gunmen and what the motive behind them was.

Criminal gangs and militias loyal to rival political powers have been active in Shiite-dominated Basra, 550 kilometres south of Baghdad.

In a separate incident in the city, Sheikh Abdel-Azim al-Idani, a close aide of senior Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, was critically wounded in an attack by gunmen Tuesday, according to the same sources.

Al-Idani's aide was killed in the attack.

Basra has recently seen a wave of assassinations targeting senior security officials, academics and clerics.

The Iraqi government has sent reinforcements to the city to crack down on criminal activities and a surge in sectarian violence.

Separately, US military confirmed that three Iraqi policemen were killed and another was injured "by mistake" Wednesday by a US patrol in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.

An Iraqi police patrol from the southern Rashad district was heading for Jawija, to the south-west of Kirkuk, when it was shot at by a US patrol by mistake.

US-led multinational forces explained that the police officers entered into a previously cordoned area at a high rate of speed and their vehicle was perceived as a threat.

The incident is currently under investigation, the US military said.

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