Bombings tore through busy areas in the Iraqi capital and cities to the north and south on Wednesday, killing at least 25 people, officials said. According to AP, back-to-back car bombs also struck a parking lot near a police building and a nearby commercial area in the ethnically mixed northern city of Kirkuk, killing a policeman and seven civilians, and wounding nine other people, deputy police chief Maj. Gen. Torhan Abdul-Rahman Youssef said. Earlier Wednesday, a parked car bomb ripped through a commercial area in northern Baghdad, killing four civilians and wounding 12, a police officer said. In Baghdad's western Mansour neighborhood, a bomb went off next to a passing police patrol, killing two civilians and wounding seven other people. A roadside bomb also killed two policemen and wounded three in Taji, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of Baghdad. And a policeman was killed and six others wounded when a bomb hit their patrol in the area of Arab Jabour, a former insurgent stronghold some 25 kilometers (15 miles) south of Baghdad. Authorities in Iraq's western province of Anbar also said Wednesday that a suicide bomber targeted a group of pro-government, anti-militant militiamen late the night before, killing eight people and wounding 14.
