3 Killed, 18 wounded in twin bomb attacks in Iraq's Mosul

A senior police officer and two people were killed and 18 others wounded in two car bomb attacks in Iraq's northern city of Mosul on Wednesday, a local police source told Xinhua. Two booby-trapped cars went off almost simultaneously at about 8:45 a.m. (0545 GMT) outside the office of nationality cards in the Derizliyah district in eastern Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, the source said on condition of anonymity. The blasts killed the chief of the office, a brigadier general, and two civilians and wounded 18 people, including several policemen, the source said. The toll of the attacks could rise as ambulances, police and civilian vehicles were evacuating the victims to several hospitals and medical centers in the city, the source said. Violence and sporadic high-profile bomb attacks are common in the Iraqi cities despite a dramatic decrease of violence over the past few years.