Military

Separate Bomb Attacks Kill Nearly 40 People in Iraq

By VOA News
26 June 2008

Iraqi officials say a car bomb attack has killed 18 people and wounded at least 62 others near a government office in the northern city of Mosul.

Officials say militants first fired rockets into a market Thursday in the center of Mosul, capital of Nineveh province. A short time later, a car bomb exploded as the provincial governor Duraid Kashmula stepped out of his office to assess the damage from the rocket attack. The governor was not hurt.

In the Anbar province town Karmah Thursday, police say a suicide bomb attack killed 20 people and wounded at least 12 others attending a tribal council meeting. The town's administrator and at least one tribal leader were among the dead.

Officials say the victims were part of a group opposed to al-Qaida in Iraq.

The attack occurred days before U.S. forces are to transfer security responsibility for Anbar over to Iraqis.

Elsewhere in Iraq, the U.S.-led coalition says its troops killed two suspected terrorists in the central part of the country.

A coalition statement says troops engaged the two suspects in a building near Sharqat, south of Mosul. One was identified as the leader of an al-Qaida cell that conducts bombing operations against Iraqi and coalition forces.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.