13 killed in central Iraq suicide car bomb

Suicide bomber rams explosive laden ambulance into security headquarters in heart of Baquba.

Middle East Online

BAQUBA - A suicide bomber rammed an ambulance packed with explosives into a security headquarters in central Iraq on Wednesday, killing 13 people, a doctor at Baquba hospital said. Firaz al-Dulaimi said a further 64 people were wounded in the attack, which a security official said targeted an office of the Force Protection Service, the agency responsible for securing the country's government buildings. "We have so far received 13 bodies, and are treating 64 wounded," Dulaimi said. The attack occurred at around 10:00 am (0700 GMT) in the middle of Baquba, a restive ethnically-mixed city north of Baghdad, and came a day after a suicide bomber killed 50 people at a police recruitment centre in the central city of Tikrit. Baquba is the capital of Diyala province, which was an Al-Qaeda stronghold as recently as 2008. While violence has dropped off dramatically both in Diyala and nationwide since then, the province remains one of Iraq's least secure.