Suicide attack Iraq: bombers, gunmen kill 23 in attacks against M

Baghdad--Suicide bombings inside a Shiite mosque during evening prayers and other attacks north of Baghdad killed 23 people in Iraq on Saturday, as they announced preliminary results for the local elections in two provinces which showed the block of the President of the Parliament to the head.

The attacks are the latest in a wave of killings that has claimed more than 2,000 lives since the beginning of April. It is the bloodiest and most sustained violence run hit Iraq since 2008.

The deadliest attack occurred after sunset, when a suicidal blew up inside a Shiite mosque in the village of Sabaa al - Bour, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) North of Baghdad. He killed 14 and injured 32, police said.

The community used to be an area of mixed religious who was Sunni and Shiite Muslims, but the Sunnis were displaced by members of the Shiite militia of army Mehdi during the subsequent wave of sectarian killings peaked in 2006 and 2007, according to the police.

Many major religious sites in Iraqi cities are surrounded by walls of concrete of the explosion and armed roadblocks and police did not express the mosque of the village protective barriers.

At least five of the victims died in ambulances as they made their way from the remote village to the nearest hospital in Baghdad, police said.

Earlier, a suicide bomber rammed his car bomb on a police patrol in the village of al - Athba near the restive northern city of Mosul, said a police officer. Three civilian bystanders and a policeman were killed and six other people were injured.

Al - Qaida in Iraq and other militant groups have been gaining momentum in the vicinity of Mosul, about 360 kilometers (220 miles) northwest of Baghdad.

In the city of Tuz Khormato, 210 kilometers (130 miles) North of Baghdad, gunmen on motorcycles riddled a civilian vehicle with four police officers off-duty with bullets, killing three and wounding another, said a police officer.

Another group of gunmen attacked a police checkpoint in the city of Samarra, killing two police officers and it injured four, said another police officer. Samarra is 95 kilometers (60 miles) North of Baghdad.

Police said two civilians were killed and nine wounded when a bomb ripped through a small market late Friday in Baghdad.

Medical officials confirmed the figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity since they were not authorized to disclose information.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the arm of al - Qaeda Iraq and other Sunni extremists often target the Shiite security forces and in an attempt to undermine public confidence in the Shiite-led Government.

Meanwhile, the electoral authorities said a partial recount of votes for provincial elections held Thursday in block Kingdom dominated by the Sunni Anbar and Nineveh provinces showed Sunni Parliament Speaker Osama al - Nujaifi, with the largest number of votes in both provinces. That block is backed by Iraqi Minister Rafia al - Issawi and prominent Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha Sunni.

A coalition of Kurdish parties was in second place in Nineveh, which has a substantial Kurdish minority. A bloc led by the existing Governor of Anbar, Qassim al - Fahdawi, was in second place in that province.

Iraqis voted in 12 of the 18 provinces of Iraq two months ago. Officials had delayed elections in Anbar and Nineveh because of what they said were security concerns, although some Iraqis questioned that rationale and dismissed it as a political ploy linked to disturbances in the provinces. The provinces have been the scene of months of protests against the Government.

The final election results are expected to be published in the coming days.

Also on Saturday, the United Nations said that another 27 residents of a camp housing members of an Iranian exile group have been relocated to Albania. The movement follows an attack with deadly rockets at the facility last week.

A total of 71 residents of the camp liberty have now moved towards the Southeast European country, which has agreed to accept 210 of them. Germany has also offered to take 100 residents. UN Urges all other States members to accept some of the more than 3,000 live in Iraq.

The dissident group, the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, is the militant wing of a movement of Iranian opposition in Paris which is opposed to the clerical regime of Iran and has carried out assassinations and bombings there. He fought alongside the forces of Saddam in the Iran and Iraq's 1980-88 war, and thousands of its members received sanctuary in Iraq. It renounced violence in 2001 and was removed from the list of terrorism in the United States last year.

Government of Iraq wants to exit, MEK members and the UN has been working to resettle them overseas.

Two residents of the camp liberty were killed in an attack with rockets on June 15 at the facilities. A Shiite militant group claimed responsibility, saying that he wants to prevent the group out of Iraq.

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Associated with writers of press Sinan Salaheddin and Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.