Two children among 12 killed in Iraq

September 08, 2009 09:56:40 AM

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Twelve people including two children were killed across Iraq on Monday, eight of them in a suicide car bomb on a security checkpoint in Ramadi, a former Al-Qaeda stronghold in the west of the country.

Ramadi, a predominantly Sunni Arab city and capital of Anbar province, was a key insurgent base in the aftermath of the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime by US-led forces in 2003, but violence has since dropped dramatically.

Monday's attack happened at around 8:30 am (0530 GMT) in Al-Jazeera, a northern neighbourhood, a police official told AFP.

"There were four security force members and four civilians among the victims," he said, adding that 13 civilians and two police were wounded.

The city of around 540,000 people, is situated 100 kilometres (62 miles) west of Baghdad.

Anbar, Iraq's biggest province, became the theatre of a brutal war focused on the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, while several towns along the Euphrates river valley became Al-Qaeda strongholds and later safe havens for insurgents.

But since 2006 local Sunni tribes have sided with the US military and unrest has dwindled as rebel fighters have been ejected from the region.

In September last year, US marines turned over control of Anbar to about 28,000 Iraqi police and 8,000 troops.

Elsewhere on Monday, two civilians were killed and 11 people wounded in two car bomb attacks in Baghdad.

And in the restive northern oil hub city of Kirkuk, two brothers, aged nine and 14, died after an explosive device they had been playing with blew up, police said.

The latest casualties come after the number of violent deaths in Iraq hit a 13-month high in August, raising fresh concerns about stability after the government admitted that security is worsening.

Statistics compiled by the defence, interior and health ministries on September 1 showed 456 people -- 393 civilians, 48 police and 15 Iraqi soldiers -- were killed, the highest toll since July last year when 465 died in unrest.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki sent extra troops to western Iraq at the weekend to secure the border with Syria and hit out at countries he says are giving terrorists the shelter they need to mount attacks inside the country.

Maliki signalled no let-up in a worsening row with its neighbour for allegedly harbouring bombers who wrought devastation on Baghdad last month, and broadened his attack to include other nations.

"We will always look for a process of closing all the doors that the assassins can breathe from again. We blame our brothers and our friends and neighbouring countries," he said on Saturday.

Anbar's police chief confirmed that police and soldiers had been sent to strengthen security along the Iraq-Syria border, which stretches for 725 kilometres (450 miles), although he would not specify how many.

The United States has also accused Syria of having lax border controls that allow insurgents, including Al-Qaeda-linked rebels, to cross.

A protest in the southern city of Hilla, meanwhile, saw more than 300 Iraqis gather to demand Syria stop its alleged support for "terrorists and assassins."

The demonstrators held up banners, declaring: "Immorality, Bashar, means killing innocent people in cold blood" -- a jibe at Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Assad has dismissed as "immoral" and politically motivated allegations by Maliki that Syria is harbouring terrorists.

Attacks on the finance and foreign ministries in Baghdad on August 19 killed at least 95 people and wounded 600, in what was the worst day of violence seen in Iraq for 18 months.