At least two dead in Iraq house bombing

Insurgents killed at least two people and wounded 11 in a bomb attack on the home of a Shiite family in a mainly Sunni town south of the Iraqi capital overnight, security officials and a medic said on Sunday. The blast on Saturday night also badly damaged a neighbouring home in Iskandiriyah, which lies within a confessionally mixed area known as the Triangle of Death because of frequent attacks in the wake of the 2003 US-led invasion. Mohammed al-Shammari, a doctor at the main hospital in the nearby city of Hilla, said two people were killed and 11 others wounded, four of them seriously. A police lieutenant in Iskandiriyah, however, put the toll at six dead, including two children, and six wounded. A man and his wife in the house targeted were killed along with another man and a child in the same building, the officer said. Two people were killed in the home next door, including another child. The family whose house was bombed were members of the Shiite tribe Al-Massudi, he said. Violence in Iraq has declined from its peak in 2006 and 2007 but attacks remain common. A total of 259 Iraqis were killed in attacks in July, the second-highest monthly figure for 2011.