At least 22 people were killed and 24 were wounded in a suicide bombing in a busy market in Tal Afar in northwest Iraq yesterday. Police sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur that a suicide bomber wearing an explosives belt blew himself up in the heart of the market. The death toll in the attack was expected to rise. Many nearby vehicles and shops were damaged in the blast, which comes as the death toll from two explosions in a northern Iraqi town on Tuesday rose to 19, police said.At least 19 people were also injured in the attacks in the town of Sharqat. A car packed with explosives was detonated near an Iraqi Army office and later, as people rushed to the scene, a suicide bomber blew himself up. Of the 19 dead, six were soldiers and another two policemen, security sources said in the nearby city of Tikrit.
Also in Tikrit, an American soldier was killed Tuesday and two other coalition soldiers were wounded when the vehicle they were traveling in was hit by a suicide car bomb, coalition forces said yesterday. Authorities in the northern city of Kirkuk have decided to station Kurdish army units at the outskirts if the city following a string of terrorist attacks.