At least nine Iraqis were killed and 17 others wounded in a Baghdad attack, while 87 suspected militants were detained in an operation in Kirkuk city, media sources reported on Thursday, according to DPA. In central Baghdad, a car bomb detonated on Thursday morning in Rusafai square near a crowded wholesale market and a bus station, killing nine Iraqis and injuring 17 others, pan-Arab al-Arabiya news broadcaster reported. Police forces sealed off the scene, preventing civilians from coming closer to the explosion site while the wounded were rushed to nearby hospitals, the independent Voices of Iraq news agency reported citing a police source. Meanwhile, a joint Iraqi army and police forces at dawn Thursday staged a raid in Senaa neighbourhood in southern Kirkuk, arresting 87 gunmen, Voices of Iraq reported citing a security source. The forces also confiscated 40 Kalashnikovs and three vehicles, the source added Kirkuk lies 250 kilometres north-east of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. On Wednesday evening, four people including a child were killed in an explosion in a Kurdish district of the northern Iraqi town of Mosul. In the Kurdish Autonomous Region of northern Iraq, recovery operations were continuing Thursday among the rubble of villages following suicide attacks on Tuesday evening that resulted in the deaths of more than 500 people.
