17 killed, 53 wounded in Iraq attacks

A total of 17 people have been killed and 53 wounded in a wave of attacks across Iraq, including an overnight suicide bombing, police said Wednesday.

Eight people, including two children, were killed and 14 injured as two bomb explosions struck Kirkuk city, some 250 km from Baghdad, during noon in an attack, Xinhua reported citing a police source.

In Iraq's Salahudin province, a police officer and policeman were killed and three officers wounded when a bomb detonated near their convoy while visiting a school in the provincial capital city of Tikrit, some 170 km north of Baghdad, a police source said.

Some 20 students suffered injuries, while taking their final examinations, due to the blast which smashed the windows of several classes in the building, the source said.

Two policemen were killed and six wounded in the same province when a booby-trapped car detonated near a passing police patrol outside the city of Sulaiman Beg, some 90 km from Tikrit city, the source added.

Separately, three people were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded at a thoroughfare in Baghdad, a police source said.

Earlier in the day, a police source from Anbar province said an overnight suicide bomb attack killed one of top leaders of the Iraqi government-backed Sahwa paramilitary groups, three security officers and one bodyguard, and left seven security men injured.

The attack occurred late Tuesday night when a suicide bomber hugged Mohammed Khamis Abu Risha. The attacker blew up his explosive vest among a crowd of Sahwa leaders and senior security officers, who were on tour at a residential area in Ramadi, some 110 km from Baghdad, the source said.