Mon, March 15, 2010
RAMADI, Iraq, March 15 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from a car bomb explosion in Iraq's former Sunni rebel bastion of Fallujah on Monday rose to eight and 25 others were wounded, a local police source said.
"The reports said that eight people were killed and 25 others wounded by the car bomb earlier in the day," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Earlier, the source said that seven people were killed and 13 wounded in the blast in Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, in the western Anbar province.
An explosive-laden car, parked on a main street in Fallujah, detonated at about 9:00 a.m. (0600 GMT), the source said.
The blast targeted an Iraqi army patrol, but apparently missed its target and instead struck a crowd of construction laborers who gathered there waiting for employment for day-long jobs, the source said.
A woman and a child were among the victims, along with many laborers, the source said, citing medical reports from the city hospital.
The blast destroyed about 15 nearby civilian cars and several nearby buildings, he said.
The attack came about a week after the country's landmark parliamentary elections, in which about 62.4 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots across the country.
Anbar province has been relatively calm in the past few years after Sunni tribes and anti-U.S. insurgent groups turned to cooperate with the U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces against al-Qaida in Iraq network.
