Anti-terror chief among 7 killed in Iraq blasts: police

Coordinated bombings targeting a local anti-terror chief and his family shattered four homes early Thursday morning in the western Iraqi town of Heet, killing seven people.Lieutenant Colonel Walid al-Heeti was initially thought to be among those who died in the blasts, which hit the town, 60 kilometres (35 miles) west of the Anbar provincial capital Ramadi, at around 3:00 am (0000 GMT), but police later said he had survived.

Attacks in northern Iraq on Thursday killed eight people, including a senior anti-terror officer who led a key fightback against Al-Qaeda in his province, police said.Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed al-Fahel, the head of the Saleheddin province anti-terror squad, and at least three of his bodyguards were among five people killed by a suicide bomb in Tikrit, the hometown of executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein."The attack was carried out by a suicide bomber, who was wearing a vest packed with explosives," said Colonel Abdel Haadi of the Salaheddin joint operations command.

Improvised bombs in the Iraqi cities of Baghdad and Tikrit killed four people on Thursday, including the wife of a police officer, police and security sources said.The woman was killed and three other people were wounded in northern Baghdad as three homemade bombs detonated simultaneously outside the homes of police officers, said a district police chief, Wisam Ali Badar.A similar attack in the west of the capital killed one person and wounded another, security officials said. And a homemade bomb killed two farmers in the northern city of Tikrit.

Monroe County Sheriff's OfficeWilliam Spengler A community is reeling after an ex-con gunned down two firefighters early Monday after luring them to his neighbou

Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani is to appear before furious MPs on Thursday after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki sacked Baghdad's security chief over attacks in the capital that killed 127 people.Maliki acted shortly after police claimed that the bombers, who also wounded around 450 people, were backed by groups in Syria or Saudi Arabia.But later an Al-Qaeda group, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), issued a statement on a forum for Muslim extremists saying it carried out the bombings, according to US monitoring group SITE.

Early voting in Iraq's general election was overshadowed Thursday by two suicide bombings at polling stations that killed seven soldiers and a mortar attack that claimed the lives of seven civilians.The blasts, which also wounded 48 people, including 25 Iraqi soldiers, came despite a massive security operation, with troops, prisoners and the sick casting their ballots in special voting ahead of Sunday's parliamentary ballot.

BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber driving a vehicle packed with explosives blew himself up outside the offices of a major Kurdish party in northern Iraq early Wednesday, the deadliest in a wave of morning attacks that killed at least 31 people across the country.

Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for attacks last month which killed an Iraqi anti-terror chief and severely wounded a television executive, posts on a jihadi website showed Monday.In a statement dated May 1, the terror network said it had carried out the April 14 attack that killed General Arkan Ali Mohammed, a counter-terrorism officer, in west Baghdad's Nisur Square.It added that, a day earlier, it was behind the booby trap bomb attached to the car of TV executive Omar Ibrahim Rasheed, which blew off his legs.