39 killed in Iraq attacks

Insurgents killed at least 39 people in a wave of attacks against Iraqi security forces on Sunday, gunning down soldiers at an army post and bombing police recruits waiting in line to apply for jobs, officials said. The attacks included a blast in a car outside the French Consulate in Nasiriyah The violence, which struck at least 10 cities across the nation, highlighted militant attempts to sow havoc in the country and undermine the government.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, although security forces are a frequent target of al-Qaeda's Iraqi franchise, which has vowed to reassert itself and take back areas it was forced from before US troops withdrew from the country last year.

On Sunday's deadliest attack, gunmen stormed a small Iraqi Army outpost in the town of Dujail before dawn, killing at least 10 soldiers and wounding eight more, according to police and hospital officials in the nearby city of Balad, some 80 kilometers north of Baghdad. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release the information.

Hours later, a car bomb struck a group of police recruits waiting in line to apply for jobs with the state-run Northern Oil Co. outside the northern city of Kirkuk. City police commander Brig Gen Sarhad Qadir said seven recruits were killed and 17 wounded. He said all the recruits were Sunni Muslims and blamed the early morning attack on al-Qaeda, but did not provide details. The carnage even stretched into the country's south, where bombs stuck to two parked cars exploded in the city of Nasiriyah, some 320 kilometers southeast of Baghdad. The blasts were near the French consulate and a local hotel in the city, although the consulate did not appear to be the target of the attack.

Local deputy health director Adnan al-Musharifawi said two people were killed and three wounded at the hotel, and one Iraqi policeman was wounded at the consulate. He said no French diplomats were among the casualties.

A string of smaller attacks also struck eight other cities, including Baghdad. In the capital's eastern Shiite neighbourhood of Husseniyah, roadside bombs killed a policeman and a passer-by, security and health officials said. Another eight people including four soldiers were wounded, the officials said.

The rest of the attacks were car bombs that hit cities stretching from the southern port city of Basra, Iraq's second largest, to the city of Tal Afar northwest of Baghdad near the Syrian border.