Five dead in Iraq attacks

BAGHDAD - Agence France Presse

EPA Photo

Shootings and bombings mostly targeting government officials and security forces in Baghdad and north of the capital killed five people today, in the run-up to the Muslim Eid holiday, AFP reported.

In west Baghdad, gunmen opened fire on an army checkpoint in the upscale residential neighbourhood of Mansur, and then detonated a bomb when police arrived at the scene, an interior ministry official said.

At least one soldier was killed in the first attack, and three police were wounded in the subsequent bombing, the official and a medic said.

Three separate attacks in north Iraq, meanwhile, left two dead -- a policeman and a young child.
In the disputed oil-rich city of Kirkuk, a roadside bomb apparently targeting the convoy of a provincial councillor killed a child and wounded two other people, a security official and a doctor at the local hospital said.

Four policemen were wounded, meanwhile, by a bomb attached to a motorcycle in Kirkuk city, according to security and medical officials. And in the village of Ko Sulaiman, a roadside bomb against a police patrol killed a policeman, the officials said.

Two civilians were also killed when gunmen opened fire on them while they were driving in the town of Kazaniyah, in restive Diyala province north of Baghdad, local security and medical officials said.

The latest violence comes ahead of Friday's Eid al-Adha holiday. The days leading up to the annual holiday are often marked by a spike in unrest.

Violence is down sharply across Iraq from their peak in 2006 and 2007, but attacks are still common, especially in Baghdad and Mosul. At least 250 people have been killed as a result of unrest in each of the past four months.