Bomb kills 6 people in Baghdad-police, hospital

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A roadside bomb killed six people and
wounded eight on Thursday in Baghdad’s western Amriya district,
a Sunni insurgent stronghold, police and hospital officials
said.

Police said the target of the bomb had been an Iraqi army
patrol. No soldiers were among the casualties.

Sunni insurgents fighting to topple the Shi’ite and
Kurdish-led government attack Iraqi army and police patrols
with roadside bombs on a daily basis.

Doctor Adel Abdul-Karim at Baghdad’s Yarmouk hospital said
the hospital had received six bodies and eight wounded, among
them a young child. A Reuters reporter saw the boy lying on a
stretcher, his eyes bandaged. Some of the other casualties
appeared to be badly wounded.

On Wednesday, two policemen were killed when a roadside
bomb went off near their patrol in Baghdad, and two Interior
Ministry employees died when a bomb blasted a ministry convoy
in an apparent attempt to kill Interior Minister Bayan Jabor.

The bodies of 18 men — bound, blindfolded and garroted —
were found near Amriya on Tuesday. Officials have yet to
confirm the religious identities of the 18 amid surging
sectarian violence between minority Sunnis and majority
Shi’ites.