Iraq market and cemetery bombs kill 11

Two bombings in an Iraqi market and another in a cemetery as people buried victims of the first blasts killed 11 people on Friday, police and a doctor said. The first two attacks targeting a livestock market in Tuz Khurmatu, 175 kilometres (110 miles) north of Baghdad, killed eight people and wounded 25. As people gathered at a cemetery to bury the victims of the market blasts, another bomb went off, killing three people and wounding two. Militants in Iraq often attack places where crowds of people gather, including markets, cafes and mosques, in an effort to cause maximum casualties. A number of funerals have also been attacked this year. Friday's attacks came a day after three suicide bombers targeted Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad and south of the capital, killing at least 36 people, as militants shot dead a family of five west of the city. Muhanad Mohammed, a journalist who worked for both foreign and Iraqi media, was among those killed in one of the suicide bombings. He was the seventh journalist to be killed in Iraq in less than three months. Violence has surged this year to levels not seen since 2008, when Iraq was just emerging from a brutal sectarian conflict. More people were killed in the first eight days of this month than in all of December last year. And more than 6,600 people have been killed since the beginning of 2013, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources. Source: AFP