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Ramadi, Iraq (AFP) Feb 3, 2011 A car bomb followed by a suicide attack on Thursday in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi killed at least eight people, including five policemen, as part of nationwide violence that left 12 dead. The blasts came just days after figures showed more people died in violence in January than any of the previous three months, shattering the relative calm that followed Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's naming of a cabinet in December. In Thursday's worst attack, a car packed with explosives detonated at around 7:15 pm (1615 GMT) in the centre of Ramadi, attracting a crowd, a police major said, speaking on condition of anonymity. At that point, a suicide bomber blew himself up, with the dual attacks killing at least eight people and wounding 15 others, a doctor at Ramadi hospital said. Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province and 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of Baghdad, has frequently been the target of attacks in recent months, despite a drop in violence across Iraq since its peak in 2006 and 2007. On January 17, a suicide bomber blew up an explosives-packed car in a convoy carrying Anbar governor Qassim Mohammed Abid, wounding three bodyguards and six policemen but leaving Abid unharmed. Anbar provincial government offices in Ramadi were targeted by attackers three times in 2010, and on December 30, 2009, Abid lost his left hand in a suicide attack that killed 23 people and wounded 30. The province was a key Sunni insurgent base in the years after the 2003 US-led invasion, but since 2006 local tribes have sided with the American military and day-to-day violence has dropped dramatically. Also on Thursday, a roadside bomb along a main road in the Ghadeer neighbourhood of central Baghdad killed two people and wounded three others including a traffic policeman, an interior ministry official said. A separate roadside bomb targeting a police patrol in Waziriyah later in the day killed one person and wounded six, including two policemen, the official said. And in Ghazaliyah, west Baghdad, gunmen shot dead Omar Abdulhamid Attiyah, a finance ministry employee. Two other bombs in Mashtal, in the capital's east, and near Samarra, 110 kilometres (70 miles) north of Baghdad, wounded five. Figures released on Tuesday showed more Iraqis were killed in attacks in January than any month since September, with 259 people -- 159 civilians, 55 policemen and 45 soldiers -- having died. The apparent surge in attacks came after Maliki formed a government in December, ending nine months of political deadlock following parliamentary elections in March.
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