Iraq violence kills 12

BAGHDAD - Agence France Presse

Ten bombings and a shooting killed at least 12 people and wounded 19 in Iraq on Friday, officials said.
 
Nine bombs exploded in and around the city of Baquba, north of Baghdad, killing a total of seven people and wounding eight, a police officer and a doctor said.
 
Three of the dead and two of the wounded were from the same family, the sources said.
 
The deadliest single attack was in Yusifiyah, south of Baghdad, where a roadside bomb exploded near a market, killing at least four people and wounding 11, security and medical officials said.
 
And in Baghdad itself, gunmen armed with silenced weapons killed a justice ministry employee in the Amriyah area.
 
Violence in Iraq has reached a level unseen since 2008, when the country was just emerging from a brutal sectarian conflict.
 
More than 570 people have now been killed this month, and more than 5,250 since the beginning of the year, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources.
 
A study released this month by academics based in the United States, Canada and Iraq said nearly half a million people have died from war-related causes in Iraq since the US-led invasion of 2003.