Iraqi PM to alter security strategy

IRAQ: Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced an overhaul of Iraq's security strategy Monday as a fresh surge of violence killed dozens of civilians and police officers, bringing the month's toll to 366.

"We are about to make changes in the high and middle positions of those responsible for security, and the security strategy," Maliki told journalists in Baghdad Monday. Cabinet would discuss the matter on Tuesday, he said.

"I assure the Iraqi people that they (militants) will not be able to return us to the sectarian conflict" that killed tens of thousands of people in Iraq in past years, he added.

Just hours after his statement, bombings during evening prayers at two Shiite mosques in Hilla, south of Baghdad, killed 13 people and wounded another 71, police and a doctor said.

One bomb exploded inside Al-Wardiyah mosque, while a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-rigged belt at Al-Graita mosque nearby.

Dozens of mosques have been attacked in Iraq so far this year.

AFP