6 killed, 11 wounded in Iraq sunday attacks

BAGHDAD, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Six people were killed and 11 wounded in separate attacks, including a car bomb, across Iraq on Sunday, the police said.

In Iraq's northern city of Kirkuk, a booby-trapped car went off near a patrol of a Kurdish security police, locally known as Asayish, while moving near the city's university in central Kirkuk, some 250 km north of Baghdad, a local police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The blast killed a Kurdish security member and wounded seven others, along with destroying one of the patrol's vehicles and several nearby civilian cars and buildings, the source said.

In Salahudin province, gunmen in the early morning hours broke into the house of an Iraqi army soldier in the city of Sulaiman Pek, some 160 km north of Baghdad, and shot him dead before they fled the scene, a source from Salahudin's provincial operations command anonymously told Xinhua.

The ethnically mixed cities of Kirkuk and Sulaiman Pek are part of disputed areas claimed both by the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan and Baghdad central government.

Earlier in the day, an Interior Ministry source reportedly said that three members of a family, including a five-year-old boy, were killed when gunmen planted bombs around a house made of mud and straw and blew them up in Taji area, some 20 km north of Baghdad.

A two-year-old daughter of the family was also wounded by the blast, which occurred in the early morning hours, the source said.

In a separate incident, a civilian was injured when a sticky bomb attached to his car detonated in Baghdad's southeastern district of Zaafaraniya, the source added.

In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, a former security officer during Saddam Hussein's era was gunned down by armed men using assault rifles in the town of Buhruz, just south of the provincial capital city of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, a provincial police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

In a separate incident, an old women and her daughter were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded in front their house in al- Gatoon area, just west of Baquba, the source said.

Also in the province, Iraqi security forces carried out search operations across the province during the past 24 hours and arrested six suspects, including five wanted individuals, the source added.

Violence is still common in the Iraqi cities despite the dramatic decrease since its peak in 2006 and 2007 when the country was engulfed in sectarian killings.

Posted in: Baghdad, Baqubah, Iraq, Kirkuk, Taji Iraq