Iraq attacks kill 14 as UN warns of 'divisive' polls

April 03, 2014 01:30

Attacks against security forces killed 14 people today as the UN's envoy to Iraq warned that the country's election campaign would be "highly divisive" amid a year-long surge in bloodshed.

The attacks came on the second day of campaigning for April 30 parliamentary polls, Iraq's first since March 2010.

Violence is at its highest since 2008 and the country is still struggling to rebuild its battered economy and infrastructure after decades of conflict.

UN special envoy Nickolay Mladenov, in an interview with AFP, underscored fears the polls could worsen a long-standing political deadlock in which Iraq's fractious national unity government has passed little in the way of significant legislation.

Today morning, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to an army recruitment centre in northern Iraq, killing six would-be soldiers and wounding 14 others, a general and a doctor said.

The attack struck in Riyadh, a mostly-Sunni town in ethnically mixed Kirkuk province.

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