At least 31 people were killed in a wave of violence that swept over northern Iraq on Thursday, as Baghdad vowed that all groups in the fragmented country would take part in the political process. The deadliest blast, in the northern town of Tuz Khurmatu, ripped through a restaurant as bodyguards of Deputy Prime Minister Roj Shaways, a Kurd, were having breakfast. "Seven cars were destroyed and 12 charred bodies were pulled from the wreckage," said a defence ministry statement. A local medic said he had treated 38 people for their wounds.
The guards were in the town, 70 kilometres (45 miles) south of the main oil hub of Kirkuk, on their way to meet up with Shaways.
"I was having my breakfast at the Baghdad Restaurant when a powerful explosion rocked the place," said taxi driver Nozad Abdullah, who survived the blast because he was in the bathroom when the attack happened.
"I went outside to see what happened and I saw two of my taxi passengers wounded inside the car and three shattered bodies lying on the ground." The town, home to 150,000 Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Turkmen, is a popular stop on the main road between Kirkuk and Baghdad.
An hour later, a second suicide car bombing targeted a US diplomatic convoy entering the complex of the Northern Oil Company in Kirkuk itself, killing a four-year-old child and wounding 11 civilians, police said. Four more people were killed, including a local politician, and five others wounded in a suicide car bomb attack in Baquba, about 60 kilometres north of Baghdad, an Iraqi security source said. To the north-west, five people were killed in an attack targeting the country's fledgling security forces in Mosul.
"Five people, including a policeman, were killed and 13 wounded in a double motorcycle bombing around 4:15 pm (1215 GMT) in front of a cafe near a police station in the city," said Commander Mootaz Abdel Wahed Mohammed.
Two firefights between US and Iraqi forces and insurgents later killed two Iraqi troops and a gunman, and a Turkish truck driver.
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