At least 40 people were killed and around 90 wounded Tuesday in a wave of violence in Iraq. The US army said it killed 13 militants during operations that began a day earlier, DPA reported. In one incident, 25 people were killed when a suicide attacker detonated his bomb-laden car simultaneously when another two suicide bombers detonated their explosives belts near a stall selling gas cylinders in the northern Iraqi town of Bayji, police said. Another 75 people were injured in the complex attack, some 200 kilometres north of Baghdad, according to the police. The blasts occurred near a group of people queuing to buy propane gas for cooking. Another suicide attacker on Tuesday morning blew himself up in a mourning procession in the Mualimeen neighbourhood in Baquba, 60 kilometres north of Baghdad, killing at least 10 and wounding 13, according to local authorities. Overnight in Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, two members of the local Awakening Council were killed, allegedly by US military fire, police sources said. In Muqdadiyah meanwhile another Awakening Council member was killed and two others wounded by unidentified militants. Brigadier Abdel-Kareem al-Juburi, the chief of Nineveh's security operations room, also told VOI that US soldiers had killed a man and his son and arrested a 15-year-old boy during a raid on a house in south-eastern Mosul, northern Iraq in the early hours of Tuesday. Separately, the US military said Tuesday that their forces killed 13 terrorists during firefights and detained 27 suspects during operations on Monday and early Tuesday. The series of operations targeted al-Qaeda hideouts in Samarra, 125 kilometres north of Baghdad and northern Mosul, 400 kilometres north of Baghdad. In other news, the governor of the north-western Nineveh province Dureid Kashmula escaped an attempt on his life Tuesday afternoon. One of those accompanying him, and his driver, were wounded. The governor's bullet-proof vehicle was attacked by an explosive device as he drove north of the city of Mosul. The governor was on his way to a local church to greet Christians celebrating Christmas.
