A suicide car bomber struck a police patrol west of Baghdad Sunday and killed eight people, most of them civilians standing in line outside a post office to collect a monthly state stipend for some of the country's poorest, police officials said, AP reported. The bombing in Ramadi, 70 miles (115 kilometers) west of the Iraqi capital, wounded 23, also mostly civilians in the line. It followed another attack in the southern city of Basra, where explosions tore through a market and killed 43 people, police and health officials said. Those blasts Saturday evening wounded about 185. Police said the blast in Ramadi took place between a petrol station and an abandoned cinema in the city center. Of the eight killed, two were policemen, they said. Initial reports from Ramadi said the blast was caused by a parked car bomb. Conflicting reports on casualties and the causes of explosions are not uncommon in Iraq in the immediate aftermath of attacks.
