AFP – Iraqi troops search cars at a mobile checkpoint in central Baghdad following a series of apparently co-ordinated
BAGHDAD (AFP) – More than a dozen apparently coordinated car bombs targeting Iraqi police and other attacks killed 52 people on Wednesday, just days before the US military officially ends its combat mission here.
The trail of bloodshed started in the capital Baghdad before stretching to the north and south of the country, hitting 10 cities and towns in quick succession in tactics that bore the hallmark of Al-Qaeda.
Some 250 people were also wounded, security officials said, as a total of 14 car bombs wrought havoc for police and soldiers whose ability to protect the country is under close scrutiny as US forces withdraw.
In the worst attack, a car bomb at a passport office in Kut, southeast of Baghdad, killed 20 people, including 15 police, and wounded 90 others, most of them police, Lieutenant Ali Hussein told AFP.
In Baghdad, a suicide car bomber blew up his vehicle at a police station in the northeastern suburb of Qahira, killing 15 people and wounding dozens more, security and medical officials said.
The attack in the mixed Sunni-Shiite neighbourhood took place at around 8 am (0500 GMT), according to an interior ministry official who gave the toll. "The victims include policemen and civilians," he said.
A doctor at Medical City Hospital said they had received the bodies of two women, two children and two police officers, and that 44 other people were receiving treatment.
A spike in unrest over the past two months has triggered concern that Iraqi forces are not yet ready to handle security on their own, and with no new government formed in Baghdad since a March 7 general election.
No one from the Iraqi police or army was available to comment on Wednesday's violence.
The US Army announced on Tuesday that troop levels were below 50,000 in line with President Barack Obama's directives as part of a "responsible drawdown" of troops, seven years on from the invasion which ousted
Coppied by http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100825/wl_afp/iraqunrestpolice
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