33 people killed in attacks in Iraq

Up to 33 people were killed and 92 wounded in separate shootings and bombings, including a suicide attack, across Iraq, police said. The deadliest attack occurred at a crowded marketplace in Northern Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, when a suicide bomber blew up his explosive vest and killed up to 20 people and wounded some 71 others, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. The explosion destroyed many nearby shops and stalls and left several civilian cars burned, the source said. Earlier on Thursday, the source put the toll at 11 killed and 35 wounded by four roadside bomb explosions, but later explained one of the four blasts was from the suicide bombing and three other were from nearby gas cylinders and an electricity transformer. Another deadly attack occurred in Southern Baghdad when a roadside bomb ripped through a popular market, killing seven people, wounding 15 others and damaging several nearby shops and stalls, the source added. In Iraq's Eastern province of Diyala, an employee working in the provincial satellite channel was gunned down by armed men and another provincial government employee was wounded in a separate gunmen attack in the provincial capital city of Baquba, some 65 km Northeast of Baghdad, a provincial police source told Xinhua. Furthermore, a fighter from paramilitary force was killed when a roadside bomb detonated near his house at a residential area some 10 km West of Baquba, the source said. In Northern Iraq, two fighters were shot dead by gunmen who stormed their checkpoint in Shirqat area, some 280 km North of Baghdad, a local police source said. Elsewhere, a roadside bomb went off near a police patrol in the Southern part of Kirkuk, some 250 km North of Baghdad, killing a policeman and wounding two others, a local police source said. Separately, a civilian was killed and another wounded when a roadside bomb ripped through Abu Ghraib area, some 25 km West of Baghdad, a local police source said. In addition, Ahmed al-Dhiyabi, the governor of Iraq's Western province of Anbar, escaped unharmed a roadside bomb explosion near his convoy on a highway in the provincial capital city of Ramadi, some 110 km West of Baghdad, a provincial police source said, adding that two of Dhiyabi's bodyguards were wounded by the blast. Iraq is witnessing its worst eruption of violence in recent years, which raises fears that it is sliding back to the full- blown civil conflict that peaked in 2006 and 2007, when monthly death toll sometimes exceeded 3,000. The UN Assistance Mission for Iraq said earlier this month that almost 5,000 civilians were killed and 12,000 others injured in Iraq from January to August this year.