Region | Iraq

14 mourners from family among 42 killed in Iraq

At least 42 people were killed in violence across Iraq on Tuesday, including 14 mourners from one family when a roadside bomb hit a bus in a southern province, security officials said.

  • Reuters
  • Published: 23:41 March 11, 2008
  • Gulf News

Baghdad: At least 42 people were killed in violence across Iraq on Tuesday, including 14 mourners from one family when a roadside bomb hit a bus in a southern province, security officials said.

Police at the general hospital in Nassiriyah, 375km south of Baghdad, said the casualties from the roadside bomb included women and children. Survivors said the bomb appeared to target a passing US military convoy.

Violence has fallen across Iraq by 60 per cent since last June, but yesterday's attacks underlined how fragile those hard-won security gains are.

Police said the bus was carrying members of a family returning from mourning rites for a dead relative in Najaf when it was hit about 60km south of Dhi Qar's capital Nassiriyah.

3 more US soldiers killed

In Kut, 170km southeast of Baghdad, at least 10 people were killed in clashes between security forces and the Mahdi Army militia loyal to anti-US Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr, a source at Kut's Al Zahraa hospital said.

In Dhuluiya, also north of Baghdad, a suicide car bomber killed five people.

Earlier, the US military said a roadside bomb had killed three US soldiers and an interpreter in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad on Monday, the same day a suicide bomber killed five US soldiers in the capital.

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