Bombs kill 4, judge shot as Iraq attacks grind on
Bombers killed four people in two Iraqi cities and gunmen assassinated a
judge, officials said Sunday, as al-Qaeda's affiliate ramped up attacks
six months after the last U.S. troops withdrew.
Three coordinated bomb attacks within
minutes of each other Sunday morning hit the central city of Tikrit, 80
miles north of Baghdad, a provincial official said. A civilian walking
by was killed and two others were wounded.
The bombs went off near a middle school where students were taking exams, but authorities said none of the students was hurt.
Further
south, three policemen died when a suicide car bomb and three roadside
bombs exploded at a security checkpoint on Saturday night in Samarra, 60
miles north of Baghdad, a police official said.
The
bombing Saturday night raised the death toll for June to at least 237,
the second-bloodiest month since U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq in
mid-December.
In the northern city of Mosul,
gunmen killed criminal court judge Abdul-Latif Mohammed in a drive-by
shooting as he was returning home from work, police said. The officials
spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to
release the information.
Government officials
and security forces are among the chief targets of al-Qaeda-affiliated
insurgents, who experts say have been emboldened by political feuding
that has paralyzed the government and are hoping to reignite fighting
among the country's ethnic and sectarian factions.
More
significant than the numbers was the fact that insurgents appeared able
to sustain the level of violence over a longer period than before.
There
was a major bombing or shooting rampage almost every three days in
June, many targeting Shiite pilgrims on their way to the annual Baghdad
commemoration of a revered imam. Shiites are also often targeted by the
extremist Sunni insurgency.
Another Shiite pilgrimage set for this week has security forces on high alert.
Hundreds
of thousands of pilgrims are expected to travel to the holy city of
Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, for the festival of Shabaniyah,
celebrating the birth of the ninth-century Shiite leader known as the Hidden Imam. The pilgrimage peaks on Friday.
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