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Victim of Baquba bombing brought into a hospital
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A suicide attack north of Baghdad has killed at least 15 people and wounded nearly two dozen more.
Police say a suicide bomber blew up his vehicle Monday outside the home of an Iraqi army officer in the town of Balad.
In the nearby town of Baquba, insurgents attacked Iraqi soldiers and police with a bomb, mortars and landmines. At least 10 people died in those attacks.
All of this comes one day after Iraqi politicians set next week for the opening of the country's first democratically elected parliament in modern history.
Negotiations by Iraq's three main political groups have so far not produced an agreement on who will lead the government, but officials say lawmakers will convene March 16, even without a deal.
A Shi'ite Muslim alliance that won a slim majority in the January parliamentary elections wants Ibrahim al-Jaafari as prime minister, but interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, whose supporters won far fewer seats, is negotiating to keep his job.
March 16 is the anniversary of a notorious chemical-weapons attack against the Kurdish town of Halabja. Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's forces killed 5,000 people in the 1988 incident.
VOA News
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