Suicide bomber kills at least 13 Iraqi police

At least 13 police officers have been killed by a suicide car bomber blew south of Baghdad. The blast near a police station in the centre of the mainly Shia-Muslim city of Hilla also wounded at least 41 police and left a two-metre crater and badly damaged the police station, in addition to several nearby houses and shops.

Reuters

Among the dead in the 7:00 am (0400 GMT) blast were a police captain and a first lieutenant. There were also three officers among the wounded.

The attack was the deadliest to hit Iraq since 29 March, when a band of Al-Qaeda gunmen and suicide bombers managed to storm a provincial council building in the central city of Tikrit killing 58 people.

On 10 2010 four co-ordinated car bombs against factory workers in Hilla killed 50.

Mainly Shia Hilla lies just beyond the edge of a confessionally mixed area south of the capital that earned the monicker Triangle of Death during the sectarian bloodshed that peaked in Iraq in 2006 and 2007.

Hilla, which is near the confessionally mixed are which became known as the Triangle of Death in 2006-2007, has been repeatedly bombed by Sunni insurgents.

Some 45,000 US soldiers remain stationed in Iraq, with all of them set to withdraw by the end of the year, under the terms of a bilateral security pact. US officials visited Baghdad last month to press Iraqi leaders to decide quickly on whether or not they wanted an extended American military presence beyond the deadline.