A car bomb killed at least 10 people in a crowded Baghdad market Wednesday, police said, while an Iraqi government spokesman praised a decrease in attacks during a new security plan in the capital.
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Later Wednesday, police said guards outside the Bab al-Sheik police station in central Baghdad fired on a suicide truck bomber as he approached them. The bomber changed course and crashed into a cement barrier, detonating his explosives. Two civilians were killed and two policemen and another civilian were wounded in the blast and exchange of gunfire, police said.
The attacks came two weeks into a joint U.S.-Iraqi plan to halt burgeoning violence in Baghdad. Iraq’s spokesman for the plan, Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Mousawi, praised a “remarkable decrease” in the level of violence in recent weeks.
“The level of terrorist attacks have sharply dropped,” al-Mousawi said.
