Baghdad - XINHUA
At least five people were killed and 36 wounded in three car bomb explosions in northern and eastern Iraq on Tuesday, the police said. In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, a car bomb went off near a football field at the town of Bani Saad, west of the provincial capital city of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 20 others, a provincial police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. Five of the wounded are in critical condition, the source said. In a separate incident, one of two car bombs hit a police patrol in the city of Kirkuk, some 250 km north of Baghdad, killing two policemen and wounding 16 people, a local police source anonymously told Xinhua, adding that many policemen were among the wounded. Earlier in the day, the police reportedly said that ten people were killed and six others wounded in separate shootings in central and northern the country. Violence is still common in the Iraqi cities despite the dramatic decrease since its peak in 2006 and 2007 when the country was engulfed in sectarian killings.