TIKRIT, Iraq, Oct 19, (Agencies): Bombs destroyed the home of a senior Iraqi police commander on Tuesday, killing at least 11 people in the northern city of Tikrit, the hometown of former dictator Saddam Hussein, police said.
The attackers planted bombs and left a booby-trapped motorbike near the house of Lieutenant Colonel Qais Farhan Rashid, commander of the emergency response unit of Tikrit, police Major Dawood Sulaiman, who was at the scene, told Reuters.
He said four people were also wounded in the explosion, including Farhan. The dead included three children and four women, all of them relatives of the police commander. His house was left in ruins. Police, soldiers and civil defence forces searched for victims under the rubble.
Overall violence in Iraq has plunged since the height in 2006 and 2007 of the sectarian slaughter unleashed after the 2003 US-led invasion but deadly attacks and bombings remain a routine occurrence.
The number of civilians killed fell sharply last month after an alarming spike in the previous weeks amid a political deadlock sparked by an inconclusive election in March and ahead of the formal end of US combat operations in August.

But tensions between once dominant Sunnis and majority Shiite Muslims propelled into power after the fall of Sunni dictator Saddam are running high.
Incumbent Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is seeking to win a second term and has inched closer to forming the coalition he needs to do that, but a Sunni-backed alliance that won the most seats in the election seven months ago has refused to join him.
The mainly Sunni city of Tikrit, 150 kms (95 miles) north of Baghdad, has been relatively stable in the past two years.
The blast in Tikrit, located some 80 miles (130 kms) north of Baghdad, leveled the home of Rashid. Rashid’s baby nephew, Shahad Mohammed, was killed, along with both of his parents. Three other family members — Rashid’s mother, brother and sister — also were killed, said Col Khalid Jassim of the Tikrit police. Rashid and his young niece survived the blast, officials said.
Saad Hassan, an official in Tikrit’s main hospital, confirmed the death toll.

In Samarra, 60 miles (95 kms) north of Baghdad, a roadside bomb struck a police patrol, killing two policemen and wounding two others, while in the capital two bombs attached to buses wounded 15 Iranian pilgrims, officials said.
Meanwhile, an Iraqi military general said he will investigate his troops in connection with the beating of journalists who were covering a bombing in Baghdad a day earlier.
Two Associated Press journalists were among those assaulted by Iraqi soldiers while trying to cover a Monday morning bombing that killed a Baghdad provincial council lawmaker. An AP Television News cameraman had his foot broken in the beatings and soldiers punched and kicked an AP photographer.
Commander of Military Operations Lt Gen Abdul-Karim al-Izi said late Monday that the beatings an “event of aggression against journalists in Baghdad” and said he will not ignore the incident.

Meanwhile, a majority of Iraqi refugees who have returned from exile to Baghdad regret their decision, saying they face insecurity, a lack of jobs and inadequate health care, the United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday.
Some 61 percent of those interviewed were sorry they had left Syria and Jordan, while one in three was unsure of staying in Iraq, according to its recently-completed survey of 2,353 Iraqis who returned to the capital between 2007 and 2008.
“UNHCR staff were informed by returnees of numerous instances of explosions, harassment, military operations and kidnapping occurring in their areas of return,” Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told a news briefing.
Although many returnees said they had left their host countries because they could no longer afford the cost of living there, some 87 percent said their income in Iraq was insufficient to cover their families’ needs.

“One of the principal challenges we found for Iraqi returnees is finding regular employment, making them reliant on irregular jobs, which are often not available,” Fleming said.
Separate polls of a total of 3,500 Iraqi refugees living in Syria and Jordan, released on Oct 8, found most still reluctant to return home on a permanent basis, according to the UNHCR.
Refugees cited political uncertainty and insecurity in Iraq, as well as poor educational opportunities and housing shortages. Syria and Jordan host some 180,000 registered Iraqi refugees.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on political factions in Iraq to reach a consensus on forming a new government, state television reported on Monday.
Since Iraq’s election in March, its leaders have been unable to agree on a new government, raising concerns over a revival of violence between once dominant Sunnis and majority Shiites propelled into power after Saddam Hussein’s fall in 2003.

Incumbent Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki flew to Tehran on Monday to seek support for his bid for a new term. Shiite power Iran has wielded great influence in Baghdad since the fall of Saddam, who waged an eight-year war against Iran in the 1980s.
Iran’s leaders have been lukewarm about backing Maliki, who they are thought to view as overly independent. Many of the Shiite political parties that dominate Iraq now were nurtured by Iran during their long exile under Saddam.
This month Tehran appears to have persuaded the Iran-backed movement of fiery anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to ally with Maliki to try to ensure a Shiite Islamist-dominated government remains in charge of its neighbour.

“All politicians and officials in Iraq should focus on formation of a new government as soon as possible,” Khamenei told Maliki on his one-day visit.
The United States and Iraq’s Arab neighbours are nervous of Iran’s growing influence in Iraq and across the Middle East.
Arab nations want Maliki to form a national unity government that would include the cross-sectarian, Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc that won 91 seats in Iraq’s 325-seat assembly, the largest number. Maliki’s State of Law won 89 seats.
In Washington, the United States on Monday played down the importance of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s visit to Tehran, but urged Iran to be a better neighbor to Iraq.
“Prime Minister Maliki is visiting Iran today. I wouldn’t over-interpret this. We understand that Iran and Iraq are neighbors. They have to have a relationship,” State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters.
“But we certainly think that Iran can be a better neighbor by respecting Iraqi sovereignty and ending its support to those who use violence in Iraq,” Crowley added.