Baghdad - An apparent suicide bomb attack on the convoy of
an Iraqi minister killed 11 and injured 22 Thursday, witnesses told
the Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
The attack on the convoy of Iraqi Labour Minister Mahmoud al-Radi
occurred in the Tahrir Square area in Baghdad, al-Arabiya TV
reported.
Al-Radi was not injured in the blast, his ministry said in a
statement.
Separately, a blast in a market area injured 16 people in Iraq's
Diyala province.
Also in Diyala, a woman was killed and a man and a woman were
injured after they were shot by US forces in Baquba. Baquba is
located 60 kilometres north of Baghdad.
US forces did not comment on the incident, according to the Voices
of Iraq (VOI) news agency.
Meanwhile, Iraq's Babel province took over its own security from
the Multi-National Forces.
'Taking responsibility of Babel province shows that the Iraqi
forces are capable of taking control of its own security and fight
terrorism,' Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser,
said during the celebration ceremony.
The Iraqi central government is keen to take over security in
Iraq's 18 provinces. Wasit province, east of Babel, will receive its
security file within the coming days, al-Rubaie said.
The handing over of the security file came amid a military
parade. US soldiers were present in a the ceremony along with
Iraqi high ranking officials and clan chiefs. No other nationalities
were present.
The Shiite province is the twelfth province to receive its
security file.
Since 2006, Diwaniyah, Samarra, Najaf, Karbala Nasiriyah, Amarah,
Basra, and Anbar received their security files along with the three
Kurdish northern provinces of Arbil, Sulaymaniyah and Dohuk.
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