Bombs kill 30 people in two Iraqi cities

A spate of attacks targeting security forces in the heart of Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul killed around 30 people on Monday -- the bloodiest day in Iraq in three weeks.

The bloodshed coincided with the release of official Iraqi ministry figures showing that violence across the nation climbed in November, with 340 Iraqis killed compared with 317 in October.

In Baghdad, 15 people died and dozens were wounded, including young police recruits and civilians, when a suicide bomber and a car bomb exploded in quick succession near a police academy, the interior ministry said.

The U.S. military released a statement saying that 12 people were killed and 35 others wounded in the attack, which it blamed on al-Qaida in Iraq.

The blasts took place on a stretch of road that reopened just two months ago after being closed for two years following a previous suicide attack.

Hours later, another 15 people were killed and 30 were wounded when a suicide car bomb plowed into a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol in Mosul, police said.

The U.S. military gave a lower toll, saying eight Iraqi civilians were killed and 36 people were wounded, including four U.S. soldiers and two Iraqi policemen.

The military views Mosul as an urban stronghold of al-Qaida in Iraq, which is believed to be behind scores of suicide bombings.

Iraq has seen dramatic improvements in security over the past year as U.S. and Iraqi forces have allied with local militias to drive out insurgents, but some regions, including Baghdad, still see near-daily attacks.

Elsewhere in northern Iraq, police found 12 unidentified bodies south of the disputed oil-rich city of Kirkuk. They had been riddled with bullets and incinerated, provincial police chief Jamal Taher Bakr said.

Monday was the deadliest day in Iraq since November 10, when 28 people were killed, including women and schoolgirls, in a triple bombing targeting a market in Baghdad's Sunni district of Adhamiyah.

Another three people were killed on Monday in a roadside bombing in Baghdad targeting a senior defense ministry official, who was wounded.

"General Mazher al-Mawlah, a defense ministry adviser, was hit by an explosive device when he left his house this morning," a defense ministry official said. Mawlah's driver and two passers-by were also killed.

Another 10 people were wounded in the attack, which Major General Mohammed al-Askari, an army spokesman, said had "directly targeted" Mawlah.

The wounded general participated in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's national reconciliation project and worked on issues related to former army officers.

Maliki has called on members of former dictator Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath party to rejoin the political process and former members of his armed forces to abandon the insurgency and join Iraq's new security forces.

Figures released by the ministries of interior, health and defense said 340 people were killed in November -- up from 317 the previous month. The defense ministry said most of those killed were found in communal graves.

Sixty alleged insurgents were killed, and another 875 were reported arrested, the ministry said.

U.S. military losses also rose last month, with 17 troops killed compared with 13 in October and 25 in September, according to the independent website www.icasualties.org.

Also on Monday, Turkish warplanes bombed targets of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels in the Zap area of the autonomous Kurdish-run north of Iraq, the general staff said in Ankara. It did not report any casualties.

Meanwhile, South Korea formally ended a four-year military mission at a ceremony in the northern Kurdish city of Arbil, with the first troops due to start leaving later this week.

Seoul's remaining 520 troops -- who have suffered no combat casualties -- and an air support unit based in neighboring Kuwait, should be out before Dec 20, according to South Korea's military command.

© Wire reports