Thirteen die in Iraq bomb attacks

26 Jan 2012, 9:11 pm   -   Source: AAP
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Bomb attacks in Iraq have killed 13 people, including 10 members of one family who died in a bomb attack on a home.

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Bomb attacks in Iraq have killed 13 people, including 10 who died in a bomb attack on the home of two brothers who were policemen, officials say.

Thursday's violence is the latest in a spate of unrest in the weeks since US forces completed their withdrawal on December 18, with Iraq mired in a political standoff that has pitted the Shi'ite-led government against the main Sunni-backed political bloc.

In the deadliest attack, a bombing in Mussayib, 60 kilometres south of Baghdad, struck the home of policemen Ahmed and Jihad Zuwaiyin as they and their families slept.

The explosion killed 10 members of the family - the two officers, their wives, and six children aged 10 or younger - a police officer in the Babil provincial capital Hilla and a doctor at Mussayib hospital said.

The police officer said the blast was caused by several roadside-type bombs placed near the house's outer walls, which destroyed it. Four people were wounded and six nearby houses were also damaged.

Mussayib, a predominantly Shi'ite town, lies in a region dubbed the Triangle of Death because of the frequency of attacks there during the worst of the insurgency that followed the US-led invasion of 2003.

In the northern ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk, meanwhile, three people were killed and five others wounded by a bomb on a motorcycle parked near a primary school in the city centre, police Brigadier General Adil Zain al-Abidine said.

Kirkuk lies at the centre of a tract of disputed territory that is claimed by both the central government in Baghdad and authorities in Iraq's autonomous northern Kurdish region.

Violence is down from its peak in 2006 and 2007, but attacks remain common. More than 200 people have been killed in attacks since American forces completed their pullout from Iraq on December 18, according to an AFP tally.

Reflecting ongoing sectarian tensions amid a political row in Iraq, messages were posted on Monday on the Honein jihadist forum vowing further attacks targeting Iraqi Shi'ites.

"The violent attacks against the Rawafid (the name used for Shi'ites by Sunni extremists) will continue," al-Qaeda front group the Islamic State of Iraq said in a statement claiming responsibility for attacks on Shi'ite pilgrims in the past month.

"The lions of the Islamic State of Iraq (will not cease their operations) ... as long as the Safavid government continues its war. We will spill rivers of their blood as reciprocity."

The jihadists often invoke Iran's Safavid past, referring to the Shi'ite dynasty that ruled Persia between the 16th and 18th centuries and conquered part of Iraq, when denouncing the Baghdad government, which they say is controlled by Iran.

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