At least eight Iraqis, including an army major and a group of butchers, were killed Saturday in a spate of bombings and shootings across Iraq. Britain announced the death of one of its nationals in a roadside bombing. The violence came a day after the announcement of uncertified final results for Iraq's Dec. 15 parliamentary elections, a step which many Iraqis, plus U.S. officials, hoped could pave the way for a curbing of the rampant insurgency.
Five bodyguards of President Jalal Talabani were also wounded in a roadside bomb blast in northern Iraq, police said Saturday. Talabani was not in the convoy when it was attacked late Friday near the town of Salman Beg, some 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of the northern city of Kirkuk, said police Col. Abbas Mohammed.
A car bomb exploded midday Saturday near the crowded Medina Market in eastern Baghdad's Shaab neighborhood, wounding four people, one critically, said police Lt. Nazim Nasser. One shop was destroyed by the blast. Gunmen shot dead the Iraqi army major, his son and his bodyguard Saturday in a brazen drive-by shooting as the three were heading to work, police Capt. Hakim al-Azawi said.
The attackers also wounded another of Maj. Raid Maamoun's sons in the attack near Qadisiyah, 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Saddam Hussein's hometown of the northern city of Tikrit.
Three butchers standing on a street-side in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dora were slain by gunmen firing from a BMW saloon, said police Capt. Firas Jiti. Saddam Hussein-era army Maj. Haider Mohammed was shot dead standing outside his home in Diwaniyah, 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of Baghdad, according to police Maj. Mohammed al-Hasnawi.
An Iraqi civilian was killed and two wounded by a roadside bomb blast that was apparently intended for a passing Iraqi police, which escaped the attack unharmed 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of the southern city of Karbala, said police Capt. Qais al-Azawi. The British Foreign Office said Saturday that a British security company contractor, Stephen Enwright, 30, was killed Thursday by a roadside bomb in Iraq. The precise location of the attack was not provided. Police found the bullet-riddled bodies of Iraqi commando officer Ali Hussein in an open field and former Baath Party member Abdun Hamid in a playground near Karbala, al-Azawi said, reports the AP. N.U.
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