56 Iraqis killed by rebel attacks

From the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk to the holy Shiite shrine town of Karbala, scattered attacks killed and wounded scores more. They included:

• A local council building in Muqdadiyah, north of the capital, was hit with a car bomb. Three people were killed and 18 wounded, said Diyala police spokesman Maj. Ghalib al-Karkhi.

• In the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, police said a soldier was killed and 10 people wounded when a suicide bomber rammed his car into an Iraqi army convoy.

• Car bombs in Kirkuk, Iskandariyah, Dujail and Mosul killed six and wounded 29. A roadside bomb in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown, killed a policeman on patrol and wounded another.

• Another car bomb in a Ramadi bus station west of Baghdad killed three policemen and wounded nine other people.

• A car bomb near a police station in Karbala wounded 28 people. Two people in the southern port city of Basra were also injured by a car bomb.

• Two roadside bombs in the city of Beiji killed one person and wounded five.

• Gunmen in Mosul attacked a police checkpoint, killing a police officer and wounding another.

While violence has subsided significantly since the height of the sectarian bloodshed in 2006 and 2007, militants continue to target members of Iraq’s nascent security forces, undermining their ability to defend the country as the U.S. ends combat operations.

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