Iraq Provincial Elections Candidates Attacked

A bombing targeted one Iraqi provincial elections candidate on Thursday, while another was kidnapped along with his father and other relatives, security and medical officials said.

A magnetic "sticky bomb" exploded on a car carrying Khaled Hussein al-Daraji, a candidate in Salaheddin province, killing his driver and wounding three nearby workers, though Daraji escaped unharmed.

And a tribal sheikh, Qais Abdul Karim al-Janabi, was kidnapped along with his son, Salaheddin provincial elections candidate Abdul Karim, and five other relatives in Siniyah, north of Baghdad.

A family member said phone contact with the relatives had been lost on Wednesday night.

Provincial polls are to be held on April 20, Iraq's first vote since March 2010 parliamentary elections.

Violence has decreased from its peak in 2006 and 2007 when sectarian bloodshed raged between Sunni and Shiite Arabs.

But 10 years after the U.S.-led invasion, attacks remain common, killing 220 people last month, according to an Agence France Presse tally based on security and medical sources.