At least 17 people were killed by explosions in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities on Sunday, Iraqi police and officials said, Reuters reported. Nine people were killed and at least 20 others were also wounded in one of the worst attacks in the Iraqi capital in several weeks, which police said targeted Iraqi Finance Ministry adviser Salman al-Mugotar. A Finance Ministry source said Mugotar was unhurt in the blast in al-Hurriya Square in BaghdadÂ’s Karrada district, but at least two wounded were reported to be his security guards.
Roadside bombs wounded two people in the Ameen district of southeastern Baghdad, and wounded another two in the Kesra neighbourhood of northern Baghdad.
Rockets or mortar rounds also landed in the Rustumiya neighbourhood of southeastern Baghdad, police said, but there were no details about casualties from that attack.
Three US soldiers were killed on Sunday in a suicide attack in IraqÂ’s restive Diyala province, the US military said in a statement. The attack happened in Baquba, it said. It was not immediately clear if it was the same attack that Iraqi police reported in Baquba on Sunday, in which they said a roadside bomb targeting a US foot patrol killed at least three children, two of them siblings, and wounded seven people.
Explosives hidden in a parked car went off at around 11am near an Iraqi police patrol in Mosul, killing three civilian bystanders and wounding at least 16 people, according to police Brig Muhammad al-Wagga. Five of those wounded were policemen, he said, AP reported. The blast caused damage to retail shops in the Dawasa neighbourhood, and about 15 cars were burned, al-Wagga said.
Farther south in Tikrit, a bomb exploded inside a police station, killing one policeman and wounding two others, according to police and doctors at a nearby hospital.
Meanwhile in the Iraqi capital, a roadside bomb exploded near a gas station as people were lining up for fuel at the start of the workweek. Three civilians were wounded, police said.