A car bomb exploded in Baghdad on Friday, killing at least 11 people and wounding 38, doctors at Al-Yarmuk hospital said. Police said they had reports of eight dead and 28 wounded in the blast in the Doura district of southern Baghdad. The district is one of the most volatile in the capital. The blast took place as IraqÂ’s electoral commission announced the final results of DecemberÂ’s parliamentary elections, which confirmed the dominance of the ruling ShiÂ’ite Alliance. Sunni insurgents fighting to topple the US-backed Kurdish and Shia-led government have accused the Shia of cheating their way to victory. Iraqi and US military officials have warned of more insurgent violence around the announcement of the results.
Two US Marines were killed on Thursday when their patrol was hit by a roadside bomb in the western Iraqi town of Falluja, the US military said in a statement on Friday. The deaths bring to at least 2,263 the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq since March 2003, when US-led forces invaded the country to topple Saddam Hussein.
Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms kidnapped a Sunni mosque leader from his Baghdad home, the Interior Ministry said on Friday, the latest in a string of attacks on clerics amid rising sectarian tensions. Adel Khalil Dawoud, the imam of Al-Nuami mosque, was seized on Thursday night by 16 gunmen who arrived at his home in the Karrada district in three white Land Cruisers, an Interior Ministry official told Reuters. A number of Sunni clerics have been killed in Iraq in recent weeks. Dozens of bodies have also been found dumped around Baghdad, usually bound and shot dead. All are believed to be victims of spreading sectarian violence.