Bombers blitz Iraqi forces, more than 50 dead in attacks

IRAQ: Bombers and gunmen killed more than 50 people in a wave of attacks around Iraq as insurgents pursued their campaign against the security forces of the embattled coalition government.

In the bloodiest incident, a massive roadside bomb ripped apart a bus carrying Iraqi soldiers from Baghdad to the northern city of Mosul, killing at least 23 and wounding 20 more, military headquarters said.

This attack followed a blast in the centre of Baghdad, where a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-packed car into a crowd of police and soldiers outside a bank, killing at least 10 of them and four bystanders. Shortly afterwards, another suicide bomber blew up a vehicle in Palestine Street in the east of the city, wounding one member of the security forces, police said.

Four electricity board employees were killed and four more wounded when their minibus was sprayed with gunfire in central Baghdad.

A car bomb also exploded in the violently divided city of Muqdadiyah, 100 kilometres (60 miles) northeast of Baghdad, killing seven people and wounding 10, police said.

Farther north in Kirkuk - an ethnically mixed city and a centre of the oil industry - two policemen were killed and two more, including a senior officer, were wounded in a roadside bombing, police said.

Two coalition soldiers - one British and one American - were also killed, their respective headquarters said.

In Tikrit, Lieutenant Colonel Rabae Al-Kidawi told AFP the army bus was hit about 20 kilometres (13 miles) north of the city, Saddam's hometown.

"The soldiers were travelling from Baghdad to Mosul on the highway to take up their duty there," he said. Iraq's military headquarters put the toll at 23 dead and 20 wounded.

Baghdad, Wednesday, AFP