Iraq car bomb kills 10
At least ten people were killed and more than two dozen wounded yesterday when a car bomb exploded near an auto dealership in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar, Iraqi police said.
A US military spokesman said in a statement that 10 people were killed and another 20 wounded in the bombing, which he said took place near a car market and targeted civilians.
The town is halfway between the Syrian border and the city of Mosul, which the US military considers the last remaining urban bastion of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The latest attack highlighted the continuing threat to security in Iraq despite a sharp drop in violence since last year.
Iraq has seen dramatic improvements in security over the past year as US and Iraqi forces have teamed up with local tribes to drive out insurgents and militias, but attacks are still common in some parts of the country.
In Baghdad, 10 people were wounded, including seven civilians, in two separate bomb attacks, police said. One targeted a police patrol and another set alight a mostly empty oil tanker.
In another roadside bomb attack outside the town of Fallujah -- once the epicentre of the Sunni insurgency -- six policemen, including one officer, were wounded, police Captain Jumaa Hussein Hamadi.
In March 2007, the mostly Turkmen town of Tal Afar saw one of the deadliest single attacks in Iraq since the US-led invasion four years earlier when a suicide truck bomb killed more than 150 people.
Meanwhile, three Russians were among seven people killed in a cargo plane crash in Iraq this week, Russia's foreign ministry said on Saturday.
”An Antonov-12 cargo plane belonging to British Gulf International Company crashed near Fallujah to the west of Baghdad on November 13," the foreign ministry said in a statement.
"Six crew members and a passenger were killed, including three Russian nationals. A Belarussian, two Ukrainians and one Indian were also among the crew members killed," it added.
British Gulf International is based in the United Arab Emirates.
On Thursday, a US army spokesman said the cargo plane was chartered by Fedex and belonged to a German company. The plane was flying to Baghdad from an airport in the former rebel strong hold province of Al-Anbar, he said.
The US army spokesman suggested the crash was due to technical reasons.
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