Iraq Suicide Blasts Claim 10
A suicide bomber blew up his car Thursday south of Kirkuk, killing two Iraqi Army soldiers and three bystanders, and a second car bomber attacked a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol in the center of Samarra, killing three people and injuring more than a dozen others.
The explosion in Tuz Khormato, 55 miles south of Kirkuk, injured at least 16 people, including eight soldiers, said Sarhad Qader, a police official. The blast occurred near an Iraqi Army checkpoint set up to guard a Shiite shrine where pilgrims were celebrating a major religious festival.
In Samarra, north of Baghdad, another suicide car bomber attacked a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol in the city center, said police official Qassim Omar. Dr. Alaa Al-Deen Mohammed of the city hospital said at least 15 people were injured in the blast.
Also in Samarra, gunmen briefly attacked a police station with rocket propelled grenades and gunfire, police official Qasim Muhamed said. No casualties were reported.
In other developments:
Across the country Shiite Muslims observed a religious holiday marking the end of a 40-day mourning period for one of Shiites' most important saints, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, Imam Hussein, who was killed in a seventh century battle.
Officials have been on the alert for attacks targeting Shiite Muslims during the festival, which draws people to shrines across Iraq. The biggest gathering is in Karbala, where hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims visited two holy shrines Thursday and marched and beat their chests with their fists in a sign of mourning.
On Wednesday, gunmen fired on pilgrims in southern Iraq, killing one person. Two days earlier, two separate attacks on pilgrims left four dead, including two police officers guarding the faithful.
In the capital, lawmakers were working to agree on a Sunni Arab lawmaker to serve as speaker of the National Assembly, part of a plan to incorporate into the new government Sunnis once dominant under former dictator Saddam Hussein.
Sunni Arabs hold a disproportionately small number of seats in parliament because many boycotted the Jan. 30 elections or stayed home for fear of attacks at the polls. Lawmakers want to bring influential Sunni leaders into the government, hoping that might tame the insurgency believed to be led by Sunnis.
On Wednesday, a group of Sunni leaders nominated lawmaker Meshaan al-Jubouri as their candidate, although it wasn't clear if he had the backing of the entire Sunni community.
Some lawmakers in the Shiite clergy-led United Iraqi Alliance coalition — which won 140 of the 275 seats in parliament — objected to the choice.
"He's unacceptable," said Ali al-Dabagh of the Alliance. "He does not represent all the Sunnis."
Lawmakers were scheduled to hold a formal session Sunday to resolve the issue.
Also Wednesday, Al-Jazeera satellite television aired a tape showing three kidnapped Romanian journalists and a fourth unidentified person — possibly an American — with guns pointed at them. The station said the four were being held by an unidentified group and no demands were made.
Romanian TV stations confirmed that the three journalists shown were the same journalists reported kidnapped late Monday near their hotel in Baghdad. The U.S. State Department said an American citizen was also taken hostage with them, but gave no further details, leaving it unclear if the fourth person shown on the tape was the kidnapped American.
Romania has 800 soldiers in Iraq as part of the U.S.-led coalition.