2 provincial governors survives bomb attacks in Iraq

The governors of Salahudin and Nineveh provinces in north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad separately escaped bomb attacks unharmed, but five of their bodyguards were wounded, police said on Wednesday. A roadside bomb went off near the convoy of vehicles carrying Governor of Salahudin Ahmed Abdulla al-Jubouri to his office in the northern part of the provincial capital of Tikrit, some 170 km north of Baghdad, a provincial police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. The blast destroyed one of the vehicles and seriously wounded two of the governor's bodyguards, the source said. The assassination attempt against Jubouri, who was re-elected as the governor on April 20, is the fifth of its kind in less than two month and the 10th since he first took office after the 2009 polls. Salahudin is a Sunni dominated province, with its capital Tikrit being the hometown of the former President Saddam Hussein. Late on Tuesday night, Atheel al-Nujaifi, Governor of Nineveh province, escaped a car bomb explosion near his convoy in the central part of the provincial capital city of Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, a provincial police source anonymously told Xinhua. The blast destroyed one of the vehicles and wounded three of his bodyguards, the source said. The attack is the fourth of its kind in less than two months against Nujaifi, who is the brother of the Iraqi parliament speaker Osama al-Nujaifi and took office after the 2009 provincial polls Violence is still common in Iraq despite a dramatic decrease since its peak in 2006 and 2007, when the country was engulfed in sectarian killings.