Deaths in Iraq city blast

05/08/2009| IslamWeb

At least five policemen have been killed and another 10 wounded in a bomb blast in the south of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital.

The bombing on Wednesday targeted a police patrol in the district of al-Doura, officials said.

The bomb was planted on a road in the al-Athouriyeen neighborhood in al-Doura, the Aswat al-Iraq news agency reported.

Security forces sealed off the area and the wounded were taken to a nearby hospital.

Bus passengers kidnapped

The attack came after US troops withdrew from urban centers in June in line with a security pact between Baghdad and Washington calling for US forces to leave Iraq by the end of 2011.

Attacks increased in the run-up to the pullback, with 437 Iraqis killed in June - the highest death toll in 11 months. But attacks against security forces are still common in the capital.

Meanwhile, at least 11 Iraqi passengers were kidnapped when their bus was seized on the road from Baghdad to the southern city of Hilla, 40km to the south of Baghdad, police sources told the German Press Agency, DPA.

The source said that security forces were searching the area for the kidnappers.

PHOTO CAPTION

Iraqi policemen examine the wreckage of a car bomb, which had been retrieved from the blast site and sent to a police station courtyard in Falluja, 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad August 3, 2009.

Al-Jazeera