Violence surges in Iraq as more killed

Iraqi security forces inspect the site of a suicide bombing that ripped through a crowded cafe in the northern city of Kirkuk on July 13, 2013. AFP photo

Violence in Iraq, including attacks on two members of a district council in the north, killed eight people today, officers and doctors said.

The attacks are just the latest in a surge in violence that has killed more than 340 people this month and over 2,600 so far this year, according to Agence France-Presse figures based on security and medical sources.

Five people were killed in Nineveh province, which is centered on the main northern city of Mosul. A roadside bomb killed district councilor Mohammed Obaid Sultan south of the city, along with one of his sons. The head of the same Hamam al-Alil district council, Saad Ali Shuwait, was targeted by a roadside bomb, which wounded four of his guards. In Mosul itself, two soldiers were shot dead at a checkpoint.

Further south, a policeman was shot dead and another wounded in an attack on a checkpoint, while a roadside bomb targeted Nineveh police chief Brigadier General Khaled al-Hamdani’s convoy, wounding three of his guards.

In Fallujah, west of Baghdad, gunmen shot dead police Lieutenant Colonel Iyad al-Samarraie and wounded two of his guards near a mosque.And a roadside bomb near a restaurant, northwest of the Diyala provincial capital of Baquba, killed two people and wounded three.

The attacks came a day after at least 22 people were killed. In the deadliest attack, a roadside bomb exploded near a cafe in the Dura area of south Baghdad, killing at least nine people and wounding at least 32. The blast came a day after a suicide bombing at a cafe in the northern city of Kirkuk killed 41 people and wounded 35.