Bomb attacks kill at least 38 in Iraq

A total of 38 people, including two senior police officers, were killed and some 141 others wounded in separate bomb attacks across Iraq on Sunday, security sources said.

The deadliest attack occurred before noon in Iraq's eastern province of Diyala when two explosive-packed cars were detonated. This incident was followed by more violence when a suicide bomber blew up himself outside a police headquarter in the town of Qara- Tabba, about 175 km northeast of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, a provincial security source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

"Our latest reports said that the number of casualties reached 33 killed, including the suicide bomber, 11 Kurdish security members and two members of town council," the source said, adding that around 135 people were wounded.

According to the source, many of the wounded were women and children who were displaced from their homes, reflecting the indiscriminate nature of the violence in Iraq which has wounded and claimed the lives of civilians and fighters alike.

Diyala province, which stretches from the eastern edges of Baghdad to the Iranian border east of the country, has long been a volatile area since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, despite repeated military operations against militant groups there.

Meanwhile, in Iraq's western province of Anbar, a roadside bomb struck the convoy of the provincial police chief while he was moving in Albu Risha area in the northern part of the provincial capital city Ramadi, the source told Xinhua. The huge blast also killed the chief of al-Fursan police station in Ramadi and wounded two policemen, the source said.

The Abu Risha area is the stronghold of the tribal leader, Ahmed Abu Risha, who heads the government-backed paramilitary group, the "Awakening Councils," also known as Sahwa. The area has witnessed fierce clashes during the past few days between Abu Risha's followers, who were backed Iraqi security forces, and Sunni tribal groups.

Since December last year, insurgent attacks have continued in the Sunni Arab heartland west of Baghdad that stretches through Anbar province, which has been the scene of fierce clashes that flared up after Iraqi police dismantled an anti-government protest site outside the city of Ramadi.

In the Salahudin province, a Shiite militiaman was killed and three others wounded when a makeshift bomb exploded near their vehicle near the town of Dujail, some 60 km north of Baghdad, a provincial security source told Xinhua.

The Shiite militiamen are part of thousands of volunteers who responded to an appeal made by the country's most revered Shiite cleric in Iraq Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who called on Iraqis to "take up arms to defend their country" against the Sunni insurgent groups, including the Islamic State group (IS), an al- Qaida offshoot that took control of large parts of the country.

Separately, IS militants fired mortar rounds on al-Jubour area in the southern part of the town of Dhuluiyah, some 90 km north of Baghdad, killing two children and wounding a man from al-Jubour Sunni tribe, a local police source said.

Al-Jubour tribesmen and local police have been fighting IS militants for over three months and repelled many attacks by the Islamist group, which once seized the town but was driven out.

Also in the province, large reinforcement forces backed by armored vehicles were deployed in the Tikrit University compound in the country's north to support security forces stationed there, in an effort to prepare for a major operation against IS militants who have been besieging the city since mid-June, a provincial security source told Xinhua.

U.S. military advisors arrived in the past few days and held meetings with Iraqi military commanders in the areas that are under control of the Iraqi forces at Tikrit University and in huge Baiji refinery outside the militant seized town of Baiji, the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Xinhua.

The U.S.-led coalition against armed Islamist militants is expected to participate in providing air support to the Iraqi ground forces as well as assisting the Iraqi explosive experts in defusing dozens of roadside bombs and booby-trapped houses on the roads leading to Tikrit, the source said.

The Iraqi security forces, backed by Shiite militias, have been surrounding Tikrit from three directions for months, but IS militants still maintain a hold of the eastern area of the city that links them to another town seized by the militants, the source added.

Salahudin province is a predominantly Sunni province and its capital Tikrit, some 170 km north of Baghdad, is the hometown of former President Saddam Hussein.

The security situation began to drastically deteriorate in Iraq since June 10, when bloody clashes broke out between Iraqi security forces and hundreds of IS militants. The armed Islamic group took control of the country's northern city of Mosul and later seized swathes of territories after Iraqi security forces abandoned their posts in Nineveh and other predominantly Sunni provinces. Enditem