Iraq's Nouri al-Maliki vows security shift as attacks kill 75

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said yesterday he would overhaul Iraq's security strategy as a two-day wave of violence killed at least 75 people including 24 police, bringing the month's death toll from unrest to 352.

"We are about to make changes in the high and middle positions of those responsible for security, and the security strategy," Maliki said.

"We will discuss this matter in the cabinet session tomorrow to take decisions," he said without providing further details.

"I assure the Iraqi people that they [militants] will not be able to return us to the sectarian conflict" that killed tens of thousands of people in Iraq in past years, he added.

A car bomb exploded in Shaab, a Shiite area in north Baghdad, at around the time Maliki spoke, killing 12 people and wounding at least 20, officials said - just the latest in a wave of bombings yesterday.

Two car bombs went off in the main southern port city of Basra, killing 13 people and wounding 48, while a wave of other bombings hit Baghdad, killing at least 11 people and wounding 102.

In Balad, north of the capital, a car bomb exploded near a bus carrying Iranian pilgrims, killing eight people and wounding at least 15.