Violence continued to rock Iraq on
Wednesday, killing at least 23 people and
injuring another 22 in shootings and
explosions around the volatile Middle
Eastern nation, according to police.
The day's deadliest attack happened
Wednesday evening on a highway near
the town of Sulaiman Bek, about 170
kilometers (105 miles) north of Baghdad in
the predominantly Sunni Muslim province
of Salaheddin.
There, at least 12 truck drivers were killed
and three others wounded when gunmen
attacked their vehicles, police from nearby
Tikrit said.
On Wednesday morning, gunmen
ambushed a security checkpoint about 30
kilometers (about 19 miles) north of Mosul,
killing seven federal police officials and
wounding three others.
The attackers then went after an
ambulance that had raced to the scene,
injuring three people inside that vehicle,
police in Mosul said.
Cities were not immune to Wednesday's
bloodshed. In al-Qahira, a neighborhood in
northeastern Baghdad, four people died
and 13 were wounded when a bomb
exploded outside a shopping market,
police in the Iraqi capital said.
These incidents are the latest examples of
violence to hit Iraq in recent months, much
of it stemming from discord between
Sunnis and Shiites, the two largest
branches of Islam. Sunnis have felt
politically marginalized under a Shiite-led
government since the ouster of longtime
leader Saddam Hussein in a 2003 US-led
invasion.
On Monday and Tuesday a total of 32
people died in explosions in Baghdad and
Mosul, police officials told CNN.
And suicide bombers and militants armed
with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades
and machine guns staged coordinated
attacks Sunday night on two Iraqi prisons
as inmates inside rioted and set fires. The
crisis ended with more than 500 inmates
escaping — some of them senior al Qaeda
members — according to lawmaker Hakim
al-Zamili.
At least 21 inmates and at least eight prison
guards
were killed, the Iraqi Justice
Ministry said, while 25 inmates and 14
guards were wounded.
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