A suicide bomber slammed his explosives-filled vehicle against the police station of the central Iraqi town of Dujail on Friday, killing at least 30 people, police and security officials said. A security official with the interior ministry in Baghdad said that around 50 people were also wounded in the attack.The attack occurred in the Shiite town located in the Sunni Salaheddin province, north of Baghdad. Dujail, 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Baghdad, was the site of an assassination attempt on executed dictator Saddam Hussein in 1982.
The attack was the second biggest in less than three weeks and comes at a time when the violence in Iraq is at a four-year low. The blast was the latest in a series of attacks in areas north of Baghdad, where violence has been slower to decline than elsewhere in the country.
Earlier Friday, a suicide bomber blew himself up in front of a Shiite mosque farther north in Sinjar as worshippers left prayers at midday, killing two civilians and wounding 15, police chief Col. Awad Kahlil said. Sinjar is near Mosul, which is the target of an ongoing U.S.-Iraqi operation against Sunni insurgents.
The last major suicide attack occurred on August 26, when a bomber thwarted a security check at a police recruiting centre in Jalawla and blew himself up, killing at least 25 young people.