4 Pakistani Shiite pilgrims, Iraqi officer killed in bomb attacks in Iraq

Baghdad, Oct. 19 (Xinhua-ANI): Four Pakistani Shiite pilgrims and an Iraqi police officer were killed in two bomb attacks in central Iraq, the police said Friday.

In north of Baghdad, a roadside bomb struck a bus carrying Pakistani Shiite pilgrims in Salahudin province, killing four pilgrims and wounding 10 others, a provincial police source anonymously told Xinhua.

The attack occurred late Thursday night when the roadside bomb hit the vehicle on the main road near the city of Balad, some 80 km north of Baghdad, the source said.

Insurgents frequently attack Shiite pilgrims, including non- Iraqi pilgrims who flock in large numbers to Iraq to visit holy Shiite shrines since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein's Sunni regime and set up a Shiite-led government.

In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, an Iraqi army officer was killed and six people, including a soldier, were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near their patrol in the town of Kan'an, south of the provincial capital city of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, a provincial police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The military patrol had just arrived to secure the site of an earlier bomb explosion in the town, the source said.

Violence in Iraq has decreased from its climax in 2006 and 2007, when sectarian conflicts pushed the country to the brink of a civil war, but tensions and sporadic shootings and bombings are still common across the country. (Xinhua-ANI)