A spate of attacks in Iraq killed seven people and struck a church and a convent on Thursday, with one bomb at a busy market claiming three lives as shoppers stocked up for a Eidul-Azha holiday. Two home-made bombs exploded in the market in Mussayib, 60 kilometres (35 miles) south of the capital Baghdad, killing three men and wounding 28 people, including two women and two children.
The bombs struck at around 11:00 am (0800 GMT), police said, and came as food markets were bustling ahead of the first day of Eidul-Azha, on Friday. Separately, a car bomb at a taxi and bus station in Yusufiyah, south of Baghdad, killed one man and wounded 10 people, police said. In the town of Saadiyah, 125 kilometres (80 miles) northeast of Baghdad, a Kurdish politician was killed and one of his guards wounded when their convoy was hit by a roadside bomb.
In the south Baghdad neighbourhood of Saidiyah, a sticky bomb attached to a minibus killed one person and wounded three, police said.
In the main northern city of Mosul, a church and a convent were bombed, with both targets severely damaged but without any casualties, religious leaders said.
One of the attacks hit the St Theresa Convent of Dominican nuns in the western Jadida (New Mosul) district, the chief representative of the Dominican order in Iraq, Father Yousif Thomas Mirkis, said. Another bomb struck the Church of St. Ephrem in the same Mosul district, causing major damage to the Chaldean place of worship, Patriarchal Vicar George Basman said.