BAGHDAD: A bomb planted near a courthouse in Saddam Hussein's hometown killed two security guards on Wednesday, Iraqi police and hospital officials said. Security officials at the civil court in Tikrit, located some 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of Baghdad, discovered pair of bombs near the main entrance to the building early Wednesday morning as people were arriving for work. Authorities evacuated the courthouse, but one of the bombs went off around 7:40 local time, killing the two guards and wounding three civilians, police and hospital officials said. It was not immediately clear whether the first bomb was timed to detonate or whether it was mishandled. Police said they defused the second bomb. Also Wednesday, police said gunmen in western Baghdad killed an employee of the Ministry of Housing and Reconstruction as he was driving to work. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters. The violence comes a day after a suicide bomber killed 61 army recruits in central Baghdad in the deadliest attack in the capital in months. The bombing, which officials have blamed on Al-Qaeda, was an embarrassment for Iraq's military as it tries to reassure the nation it can fill the gap left by America's departing military. At the end of this month, U.S. troops will number just 50,000 and will be involved only in limited combat operations.
