BAGHDAD, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Twelve people were killed and 55 others injured Tuesday in gunfire and bomb attacks, including a suicide car bombing, across Iraq, the police said.
The deadliest attack occurred in Iraq's northern Nineveh province in the afternoon when a suicide bomber drove his explosive-laden tanker into the entrance of an Iraqi army base in al-Tanak neighborhood in western Mosul, killing up to five soldiers and an officer, a provincial police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
The powerful blast also wounded some 28 people, many of whom were soldiers, the source said.
Earlier, the source put the toll on four killed and five wounded, and said that the bomber used a car packed with explosives.
In a separate incident, a member of Mosul's municipality and one of his bodyguards were killed when gunmen attacked their car in western of the city, the source added.
Also in Mosul, a booby-trapped car detonated near a police patrol in al-
Mansour district in southern of the city, wounding 9 passers-by, he said.
Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, is the capital of Nineveh province which has been a stronghold for insurgent groups, including al-Qaida militants, since the U.S.-led invasion of the country in 2003.
In Iraq's northern province of
Kirkuk, two members of the government-backed Awakening Council group were killed when gunmen opened fire on their car in a village near the city of Hawija, some 50 km southwest of the provincial capital city of Kirkuk, a provincial police source anonymously told Xinhua.
Two people who were accompanying the victims were also wounded by the gunfire, the source said.
The Awakening Council group, also known as
Sons of Iraq movement or Sahwa, consists of mostly anti-U.S. Sunni insurgent militant groups, who turned their rifles to fight al-Qaida network after Sahwa's leaders became dismayed by al-Qaida's brutality and religious zealotry in the country.
In a separate incident, a Kurdish security member, also known as Asaish, was killed and another injured when a roadside bomb struck their patrol in al-Wasiti district in southern Kirkuk, some 250 km north of Baghdad, the source said.
The blast was followed by another roadside bomb exploded near a police vehicle which came to secure the scene of the first blast, wounding a policeman, the source added.
Also in Kirkuk, a sticky bomb attached to the car of an entrepreneur exploded outside the Technical Institute in southern of the city, wounding him along with 10 people who were close to the scene, he said.
In Iraq's northern central province of Salahudin, gunmen opened fire on the car of a farmer in the city of Sharqat, some 110 km north of the provincial capital city of Tikrit, killing him and wounding his wife, a provincial police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Salahudin is a Sunni-dominated province. Its capital city of Tikrit, some 170 km north of Baghdad, is the hometown of former president Saddam Hussein.
In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, gunmen wounded an off- duty policeman near his house in a village near the provincial capital city of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, a source from the provincial operations command told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
In a separate incident, a former leader of Sahwa was wounded when a roadside bomb went off near his car in al-Nada area, some 50 km east of Baquba, injuring him, the source said.
Violence in Iraq has ebbed from its climax in 2006 and 2007 when sectarian conflicts pushed the country to the brink of a civil war, but sporadic shootings and bombings still occur across the country.
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