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Suicide bomber kills at least 7 in Iraq's Ramadi


    BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide car bomber killed at least seven people and wounded 25 in the western Iraq city of Ramadi on Sunday and the toll was expected to rise, the deputy governor of Anbar province said.

    "It (the explosion) was at a crowded crossroad. There were civilian vehicles passing and it is also the entrance to the main government offices," Hikmet Khalaf said.

    "The death toll could rise because there are people who are critically wounded."

    A police source, who put the toll at 11 killed and 41 wounded including six police officers, said a car bomb exploded at the entrance to an office complex in which the provincial council is based in the centre of Ramadi, 100 km (60 miles) west of Baghdad in Anbar province.

    There was a simultaneous explosion nearby at a bus terminal, two police sources said.

    The sprawling desert province of Anbar was the heartland of a fierce Sunni Islamist insurgency after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and was in the grip of al Qaeda. Its main cities, Ramadi and Falluja, witnessed some of the fiercest fighting of the war.

    But local Sunni tribal chiefs turned on al Qaeda, helping U.S. forces bring relative peace to the region.

    (Reporting by Fadhel al-Badrani; Writing by Serena Chaudhry; editing by Tim Pearce)