At least 12 people died, including two Iraqi policemen, and 19 were hurt in three separate car bombings in different areas of Baghdad's central Karrada district on Monday, police said. The two bombs detonated almost simultaneously, Reuters reported.
One exploded near a government office in Karrada which issues identity cards to Iraqis. Police stated the bomb near the identity card office went off as a police patrol passed by. Another three police were among the injured, they said.
The second bomb went off in a busy shopping area in predominantly Shi'ite Karrada. At least three civilians were killed in the blast.
Another car packed with explosives struck a police patrol in Elway square at about 11:30 a.m. in another part of Karradah, killing two policemen and a civilian and wounding five people, police said.
A roadside bomb also was aimed at a police patrol but missed its target, killing a civilian and injuring two others in the southern Shiite area of Hillah, another officer said. Gunmen elsewhere in the province killed a 35-year-old lawyer, he added, according to the AP.
Elsewhere, gunmen opened fire on an open-air market in Iskandariyah, killing a man and his wife as well as a policeman who started firing at them, another officer said.
Three bullet-riddled bodies of men in civilian clothes also were found at a construction site in Iskandariyah, a mostly Sunni Arab city 30 miles south of Baghdad, police said. The men, ages 25 to 35, had been bound by their hands and legs and bore signs of torture.
