Explosions in central Iraq have killed 18 people and wounded the governor of Anbar province, according to officials.
Two bombs exploded in Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, a police official told the Associated Press. He said the governor, Qassim Mohammed, had been inspecting the damage from the first bomb when he was caught in the blast of the second.
Hikmet Khalaf, the deputy governor of the province, told Reuters that Qassim Mohammed was taken to hospital.
A police colonel, Jabbar Ajaj, said both blasts were suicide attacks, with the first bomber in a car and the second on foot.
There are 18 provincial governors in Iraq. Anbar, a Sunni Arab province west of Baghdad, is strategically important because it was a stronghold of insurgency before the US military began paying fighters to participate in the pro-government Sons of Iraq program, also known as the Awakening Council.
Recent attacks have raised fears that violence will increase ahead of Iraq's general elections in March 2010.
