BAGHDAD, July 28 ? More than 110 people were killed and dozens injured in suicide bombings and clashes on Wednesday as Iraq's interim government ended its first month in office amid deepening violence and hostage crisis.
A total of 68 people were killed and more than 70 wounded in a suicide car bombing outside a police station in Baquba. The blast took place at about 9:30 a.m. (0530 GMT) when young men were queuing outside the police station to join the police.
Several cars, buildings and shops surrounding the fortified police station were badly damaged while the police building was spared.
Ambulances raced to the scene and carried the dead and injured to the nearby hospital while police sealed off the area, preventing large crowds of onlookers, including the media, from approaching to the building.
Meanwhile, 35 insurgents were killed and more than 40 others wounded in a joint raid launched by multinational troops and Iraqi security forces south of Baghdad early Wednesday.
"Approximately 35 anti-Iraqi force members were killed and more than 40 were detained" in a joint raid around the town of Suwariyahat 7:00 a.m. (0300 GMT), the US military said in a statement.
Earlier Wednesday, a medical source in the nearby city of Kut said five officers of the Iraqi security forces were killed and 48others wounded in clashes with insurgents in the town of Suwariyah, some 70 km south of Baghdad.
Suwaiyrah is currently under the control of 6,200-strongmultinational troops from 16 countries led by Poland.
Elsewhere, two US aircraft were damaged and 10 US soldiers were wounded in fierce clashes in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, according to a US military spokeswoman.
The clashes also killed one Iraqi insurgent and wounded another, she said.
"The camp around Ramadi came under attack around 1:00 p.m. (0900GMT). Ten US service members were injured, one enemy killed and one enemy wounded," the spokeswoman said.
Two US aircraft were forced to land after being attacked with small arms by the insurgents at about 2:30 p.m. (10:30 GMT), the spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity.
In another development, gunmen kidnapped three sons of the governor of Iraq's restive Al-Anbar province who attacked the official's private home in the flashpoint city of Ramadi.
Unidentified gunmen rushed into the governor's home and kidnapped his sons aged between 15 and 30, and then set part of his home ablaze while Governor Abdul Karim Burghis al-Rawi was at work.
The police launched immediate investigation to determined the whereabouts of the kidnappers.
Ramadi, some 110 km west of Baghdad, has been the bastion of insurgency against the US occupation of Iraq, but fighters have frequently targeted Iraqi security forces describing them as collaborators with occupation troops.
In Balad-Ruz, another trouble spot not far from Baquba, one US soldier on patrol was killed and three others wounded when their convoy was hit by a roadside bomb, the US military said.
In Baghdad, two Iraqis were killed and six others wounded when a rocket hit a busy street located in a residential neighborhood in central Baghdad.
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