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FALLUJAH, Iraq : A double-blast suicide bomber targeting a military checkpoint and labourers killed eight people on Monday in the former Sunni rebel bastion of Fallujah, Iraqi police and medics said.
Twenty-eight other civilians were wounded in the blasts, which occurred within minutes of each other at around 9:00 am (0600 GMT) in the centre of Fallujah, 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad, officials said.
Captain Bashar Mohammed, a police station chief in Fallujah, said the bomber parked his explosives-packed vehicle near a military checkpoint in the centre of the city.
The assailant then walked into a group of labourers and detonated his explosives vest. The car bomb exploded shortly afterwards, again without causing any military casualties.
"He blew himself up among a group of day labourers," Mohammed said.
The casualty toll of eight labourers killed and 28 civilians wounded was confirmed by Ahmed Abdul Halim, a doctor at Fallujah General Hospital, without giving a breakdown for the two attacks.
The security situation in Fallujah, once a hotbed of Sunni insurgency, has improved dramatically although militants still carry out sporadic attacks.
Since 2006, Sunni tribesmen and former rebels have joined forces with the US military against Al-Qaeda, slashing the jihadists' presence in the western region.
- AFP /ls
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