Blast Kills 16 Iraqis, Another Official Assassinated

At least six policemen where among 16 people killed when a bomber blew his vehicle near an Iraqi military college in southeast Baghdad, reported the Doha-based Aljazeera broadcaster.

A U.S. military spokeswoman put the initial death toll at 12, including four policemen.

"Initial reports indicate that 12 Iraqis were killed, including four police officers, and 13 Iraqis wounded, including one police officer, when a suspected car bomb detonated near an Iraqi police patrol in southeast Baghdad," she told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Abdul Razzak Kadhem, senior police officer at the scene of the blast, told Reuters that a suspicious vehicle was driving towards the college where many U.S. soldiers are also based.

Two police cars tried to intercept the vehicle but it exploded, destroying one police car and badly damaging the other.

Two charred bodies could be seen in the blackened wreckage of the destroyed police car, Reuters added.

Several civilian vehicles were also damaged. Blood could be seen on the driver’s seat of a white pick-up truck.

The U.S.-led occupation’s headquarters in Baghdad also came early under a rocket attack Sunday, Reuters said.

A U.S. occupation spokeswoman said the attack caused no casualties in the heavily fortified U.S. compound inside what is known as the "Green Zone", which often comes under mortar and rocket attack from Iraqi resistance fighters.

More Assassinations

Also on Sunday, Kamal Al-Jarrah, director-general for cultural relations in Iraq’s interim education ministry, was fatally wounded by gunmen as he left his house in western Baghdad.

He died later in the city’s Yarmuk Hospital, Abdul Khaliq al-Amiri, secretary to the education minister, told Reuters.

Jarrah’s wife, who was with him, was unhurt in the attack, he added.

Jarrah, 63, was mainly responsible for dealing with exchange programs and relations with foreign countries and UNESCO.

He had worked in the education field for 40 years, Amiri added.

On Saturday, June 12, gunmen killed Bassam Kubba, the foreign ministry’s undersecretary for multinational affairs and international organizations.

He was shot as he drove to work from his home in Baghdad’s Adhamiya district and breathed his last after being rushed to hospital.

It was the first assassination of a top official since the new caretaker government was installed on June 1.

Shiite politician Ezzedine Salim, who was rotating president last month of the now dissolved Governing Council, was killed in a bombing on May 17.

Salim was the second member of the council to be killed since it started operations.