FALLUJAH, Iraq — Two children of a senior Iraqi police officer were killed on Friday by a bomb planted in their family's garage in a town near Fallujah, west of Baghdad, a police officer told AFP.
Six others, including two women and two girls aged less than 10, were wounded as the 10 and 11-year-old boys died in the sticky bomb attack, which occurred at around 3:00 am in Al-Karma, around 15 kilometres (10 miles) east of Fallujah.
The home belonged to police Lieutenant Colonel Abdel Salam Khawam, the chief of one of the town's police stations, according to the police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The security situation in Fallujah -- once a major bastion of the Sunni insurgency -- has improved dramatically since the launch of the Sahwa "Awakening" movement of militias and former rebels who switched sides to fight alongside the Americans in 2006.
The bombing comes around two weeks after US troops withdrew from urban centres in line with a security pact between Baghdad and Washington that calls for American forces to leave Iraq by the end of 2011.
Violence had dropped markedly throughout the country in recent months but attacks increased in the run-up to the US military pullback, with 437 Iraqis killed in June -- the highest death toll in 11 months.
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