Suicide Bomber Kills 7 in Iraq's Fallujah

A double-blast suicide bomber targeting a military checkpoint and labourers killed eight people on Monday in the former Sunni rebel bastion of Fallujah, Iraqi police and medics said.

Twenty-eight other civilians were wounded in the blasts, which occurred within minutes of each other at around 9:00 am (0600 GMT) in the centre of Fallujah, officials said, AFP reports.

The bomb exploded in a car parked about 150 meters(500 feet) from an army patrol in the city of Falluja, some 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

"The blast rocked the area and I found myself suddenly on the floor," said 30-year-old Mohammed Abdullah, a shopkeeper who was wounded in the blast. "Once I saw the smoke and the burning car, I immediately knew it was a bomb," Washington Post reports.

Anbar which was the center of extremist insurgency in the wake of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq has recently witnessed an improvement in the security situation with many local Sunni tribesmen and former insurgents taking on the militants.

Although the general elections were an unqualified success with voters turning up in large numbers despite the threat of violence from militants, 38 people died as a result of violence on the polling day.

Monday's bomb attack was the first significant strike by insurgents after the general elections, PTT News reports.