IRAQ: Suicide truck bomb hits police in Iraq's Kirkuk

A suicide bomber driving a truck packed with explosives hit a police station in central Kirkuk, whilst in Basra a roadside bomb exploded next to a British convoy. In Baghdad relatives collected bodies of those killed in a double bombing at a university. Bombs and mortars hit Kirkuk and Baghdad on Wednesday (January 17) as the Iraqi government prepared to launch a security plan to stem violence as part of what has been billed as a "last chance" to head off civil war. In a sign the government is scrambling to meet political commitments, Iraq's Oil Ministry spokesman said the Oil Committee, grouping senior national and regional leaders, had agreed a final draft of a crucial oil law that sets rules for sharing revenues and boosting output. A day after one of the bloodiest days in weeks, a suicide bomber driving a truck packed with explosives killed 10 people at a police station in central Kirkuk. In the southern Iraqi city of Basra a roadside bomb exploded next to a British convoy, wounding a British soldier, witnesses said. The blast took place in the eastern side of the second largest city in Iraq. Britain has about 7,000 troops in Iraq, mostly patrolling the mainly Shi'ite south. At least 111 British soldiers have died in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003. On Tuesday (January 16) , bombers killed 70 people, many of them young women students, at a Baghdad university. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite Islamist, blamed the Mustansiriya University bombs on loyalists of ex-president Saddam Hussein. At least 105 people were killed on Tuesday in bombings and a shooting in the capital on a day when the United Nations (U.N.) said more than 34,000 Iraqi civilians died in violence last year.

ITN Source | January 17, 2007

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