FALLUJA: Two bombs exploded near a crowded market in the Iraqi city of Falluja on Monday, killing six people and injuring two dozen, while two roadside bombs in Diyala province killed 10, security and hospital sources said.
In a separate incident in the Iraqi capital, a roadside bomb killed three people. Violence has fallen sharply in Iraq in recent years but Iraqi forces are still battling a stubborn insurgency that carries out bombings and other attacks on a daily basis. US troops are scheduled to withdraw by the end of the year. The first blast in central Falluja killed two policemen with a bomb disposal unit that had been sent to dismantle a car bomb, and a second device exploded shortly after the first, killing four civilians, an Interior Ministry source said.
A police officer who asked not to be identified said the first explosion was caused by a roadside bomb, followed by a car bomb. “The roadside bomb exploded on a main road near a crowded market. When people gathered to evacuate casualties a nearby car bomb exploded,” the officer said.
Falluja Hospital spokesman Nadhum Hadeed said it had received five bodies and 25 injured people, and needed blood donations to treat the injured.
Falluja, located in Iraq’s mainly Sunni western province of Anbar about 50 km west of Baghdad, was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting at the peak of Iraq’s sectarian warfare. The bombings in restive Diyala province occurred in a village near the town of Khan Bani Saad, about 30 km northeast of Baghdad. Six members of a family were killed by the first blast and four people who went to their aid died in a second explosion, a Diyala police source said.
