Mortar shells barraged a Shiite enclave north of Baghdad, killing at least three people on Saturday, police said. Some 16 mortar shells rained on houses in the Sharqiya residential area in Khalis, 50 miles north of Baghdad, police said. According to the AP, they said 24 people were hurt in addition to the three killed.
Farther north, storekeepers in Kirkuk swept broken glass and other debris from the bloodstained pavement hours after a series of bombs hit commercial areas in the city, killing at least four people and wounding 38. The attacks started Friday evening when a bomb struck a mainly Turkomen open-air market in the Qoriyah district in the city center, killing two people and wounding 25, police Col. Burhan Tayeb Taha said.
Three more blasts reported in the city within three hours, killing two people and wounding 13, Taha said. Police said at least three women and five children were wounded.
Meanwhile, Iraq's president and prime minister urged the nation's diplomats on Saturday to forge strong global ties. "Your role should be as militants to defend the new Iraq," President Jalal Talabani said at the opening of a four-day conference of Iraqi ambassadors.
"You have to play an effective role in the political and media domain. You should show the achievements made in Iraq."
"Iraq is unjustly accused of not wanting relations with the Arab countries but the opposite is true. Iraq has been making painstaking efforts for the sake of good relations with the Arabs," Talabani told the envoys.
Talabani also urged the envoys to boost relations with "friendly countries" in order to secure economic investment.
"Relations should also be improved with major countries as we now need world resolutions that could be important for us until... full independence is achieved," the president added.
