Two suicide bombers have attacked a tent packed with protesters in northern Iraq, killing at least eight people and wounding 51 others, officials said. A protest by members of a group of ethnic minority Iraqi-Turkmen was taking place at that time. The attackers struck at around mid-day on Tuesday in the ethnically-mixed town of Tuz Khurmato, interim town mayor Talib al-Bayati told the AFP news agency. Among the dead were a former deputy provincial governor and his two sons. The protesters had been rallying over poor security in the town, which is regularly hit with attacks. Tuz Khurmato lies within a tract of territory that the Kurdish region of Northern Iraq wants to incorporate into its three-province region, over Baghdad’s objections.
Shia pilgrims attacked: Also on Tuesday, a magnetic “sticky bomb” attached to a minibus went off near the town of Iskandiriya, south of the capital Baghdad, as Shia pilgrims were on their way to Karbala for Shabaniyah commemorations.