Suicide bomber kills nine Iraqi policemen

AFP/BaghdadA suicide bomber killed nine Kurdish policemen in northern Iraq yesterday, while five people died in other attacks, officials said. With the latest attacks, violence has killed more than 730 people in July and over 3,000 since the beginning of the year, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources. The suicide bomber detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle near a police convoy in the town of Tuz Khurmatu in Salaheddin province, also wounding nine officers, district official Shalal Abdul Baban said. A doctor and police confirmed the toll. The town is part of a swathe of northern territory that Iraqi Kurds want to incorporate into their three-province autonomous region over the strong objections of the federal government in Baghdad. Diplomats and officials say the dispute is one of the main threats to Iraq’s long-term stability. Security forces meanwhile began a major operation yesterday in Diyala, Salaheddin and Kirkuk provinces, aimed at tracking down those behind bombings and assassinations during Ramadan, Lieutenant General Abdulamir al-Zaidi said. All three provinces have been hit by frequent attacks, including in recent weeks. In Baghdad, a magnetic “sticky bomb” on a bus killed two people and wounded eight yesterday, while gunmen killed a policeman and wounded two others in Samarra, north of the capital, officials said. And three attacks in the southern province of Basra killed tribal leader Sheikh Issa al-Othman and an employee of the Southern Oil Company, and wounded a civilian and three policemen.