Iraq explosions kill 43, scores wounded

At least 43 have been killed in the attacks  Car and roadside bombs exploded in cities across Iraq on Tuesday, killing at least 43 people and wounding 188, police and hospital sources said. The deadliest attack was in the southern Shiite holy

city of Karbala, where two explosions killed at least 13 people and wounded 48, the sources told Reuters news agency.
Another big attack occurred in the northern city of Kirkuk, where six people were killed and 30 others wounded, according to Dr Mohammed Abdullah at Kirkuk hospital, AFP reported.
Large bombings also occurred in central Baghdad and in the town of Hilla, south of the capital, officials said, though the tolls could not immediately be verified.
Iraq witnessed more than 17 attacks in seven different provinces.
The head of the Baghdad Provincial Council and the Governor of Anbar province meanwhile survived two separate assassination attempts that targeted their motorcades.
Car bombs and machine guns targeted different areas in Baghdad, Karbala, Babil, Salahuddin, Anbar, Kirkuk and Nineveh killing and injuring more than 250 people.
A source in the Metropolitan Police said to Arabstoday that “unidentified gunmen stormed on Tuesday morning a Church in Mansour district, western Baghdad, and fired machine guns at three police officers who were part of the church guard. They were killed on the spot.”
A police source in the city of Ramadi, Anbar province (112 kilometres west of Baghdad), reported the death of a college student and the injury of 18 others caused to due a car bomb in 17 Street in the city’s downtown area.
In Salahuddin province, five civilians were killed by the explosion of a car bomb in Samarra, while another bomb car killed 12 policemen in Kirkuk (250 kilometres north of Baghdad), and wounded 42 others.
Moreover, three people died and 19 were wounded when two cars exploded in the district of Mahmudiyah, while a source in Mahmudiyah Hospital said to Arabstoday that the hospital had received the dead and were treating the injured. 
In Karbala (108 kilometres south of Baghdad), 14 civilians were killed and 53 others were wounded, among which were Iranian visitors in the two bombed cars.
In Mosul, three peopled were injured, including two military personnel, in a blast caused by an explosive device on the side of the road which targeted an Iraqi army patrol.
The attacks come on the ninth anniversary of the beginning of the US-led invasion of Iraq which ousted former leader Saddam Hussein, and just days before Baghdad hosts an Arab League summit, the first meeting of the 22-nation body to be held in the capital since Saddam’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Violence across the country is down from its peak in 2006 and 2007, but attacks remain common. A total of 150 Iraqis were killed in February, according to official figures.