Thursday's violence claims lives of 33 Iraqis

At least 33 people were killed and 67 others injured in Thursday's violence in Iraq. A security source in Diyala Province told KUNA that 16 people were killed and 31 others wounded in the explosion of a booby-trapped truck in crowded area in the town of Baladruz, east of Baquba, Diyala province. In a separate incident, an Iraqi man was killed and five others injured when a bomb placed in microbus blew off in Al-Shaab neighborhood, Northeast of Baghdad. Two people were killed and six others wounded in a bombing assault in southern Baghdad. In Falluja in Ramadi province, eight people were killed and over 21 others injured as several of the volatile city's neighborhoods were attacked by 39 mortar shells. In Anbar, pro-government tribal fighters managed to restore control of nine police stations from anti-government fighters who seized them in the past two days. In Mosul, three civilians and one soldier were killed and four others wounded in three separate blasts and a militant attack on a police post. Two military personnel were killed in bomb attack on their patrol in the northern city. The violence in Iraq has been taking a deteriorating turn in the past few days after the Army and security forces broke up a year-long anti-government sit-in in the volatile Anbar city. Tension is festering between the government of Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, a Shiite, and Iraqi Sunnis who accuse authorities of marginalizing and targeting their community, including through wrongful detentions and accusations of involvement in terrorism. According to the United Nations mission to Iraq says violence claimed the lives of 7,818 civilians in 2013, the highest annual death toll in years. The UN figures issued Wednesday gave a total of 759 people killed in December alone, including 661 civilians and 98 members of the security forces. The UN's monthly figures for both civilians and security forces over the year totaled 8, 868.