Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s Prime Minister, gestures as he speaks in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, July 5, 2008, as a poster showing the country’s most prominent Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, hangs in the background (AP)
BAGHDAD, (Reuters) – A car bomb killed six civilians and wounded 14 other people in the Shaab district of northern Baghdad on Sunday, police said.
One woman was among the dead and three policemen were wounded in the attack, which targeted a police patrol. There has been a relative lull in violence in the Iraqi capital.
In other violence, a roadside bomb killed up to seven family members of a senior Iraqi Kurdish official in Diyala province, police said.
The bomb hit a convoy carrying Mohammed Ramadan and his family in Jalawla, 115 km (70 miles) northeast of Baghdad. It killed his wife and two or three of his sons. Police were unclear of the number and identity of the other family members.
Two of his bodyguards were also killed.
Ramadan, who was wounded, is a senior member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, one of the two main Kurdish parties in Iraq.
U.S. and Iraqi officials say that violence in Iraq has dropped to four-year lows. U.S. officials say a surge in U.S. troops last year, a rebellion by Sunni Arab tribal leaders against al Qaeda and a ceasefire by anti-American Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have helped reduce attacks.
Numbers from the Health Ministry showed 448 civilians were killed in June in Iraq, from 505 May. The May figure was down from 968 civilian deaths in April, a month when fighting spiralled between Shi’ite militias and security forces.
Iraqi soldiers guard the road leading to the airport during a launch ceremony in Baghdad July 5, 2008 (REUTERS)
A US soldier accepts a plate of bread and jam from an Iraqi child during a morning patrol in the Al-Dora neighbourhood in Baghdad on July 4, 2008 (AFP)