Bomb blast kills 10, wounds 25 in Iraqi town
A car bomb exploded in a street market in the mainly Shi’ite Iraqi town of Khalis on Thursday, killing 10 people and wounding 25 others, police and hospital officials said.
Authorities dispatched special forces and locked down the town 80 km (50 miles) north of the capital, Baghdad, where the Iraqi government was hosting U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and staging a major ceremony to mark the end of the American military presence in Iraq.
The remaining 13,000 U.S. troops are due to be out of Iraq in the next few weeks, nearly nine years after the invasion that toppled Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein.
“According to the witnesses, there was a parked civilian car bomb in the street market and it blew up and led to the deaths of 10 people,” said Major Ali al-Temimi of the Khalis police.
A physician at the hospital in Khalis, Dr. Hameed Hussein, confirmed the toll.
The bombing underscored Iraq’s fragile security as the United States leaves a rebuilt Iraqi police force and army to cope with a still-lethal al Qaeda-linked Sunni insurgency and Shi’ite militias supported by neighboring Iran.