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12 killed in separate attacks across Iraq

24 May 2014 17:21 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. A total of 12 people including four Iranian nationals were killed and 39 others wounded in separate attacks across Iraq on Saturday, police and medical sources said, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, four Iranian workers were killed when a roadside bomb struck a convoy of vehicles belonging to an Iranian company building a gas pipeline between Iran and Iraq in Imam Wies area, some 110 km northeast of Baghdad, a provincial police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Eight Iranian and Iraqi workers were also wounded by the blast, the source said.

The Iranian company is working on extending the pipeline as part of a deal signed earlier with Iraq to import gas into Iraq to fuel a power plant in Mansouriyah area in Diyala province, the source said.

No group has immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks. However, violence and sectarian tensions have been running high during the past few months between Sunni and Shiite communities in the volatile province of Diyala, as Sunnis and Shiites accuse each other of supporting extremists and militiamen.

Separately, four policemen were killed and another wounded by gunmen who attacked a police checkpoint in al-Raga area, just south of the city of Samarra, some 120 km north of Baghdad, a local police source told Xinhua.

In addition, a car bomb detonated outside the house of a leader of a government-backed Sahwa paramilitary group in the city of Baiji, some 200 km north of Baghdad, leaving his wife and two of his sons wounded, a police source said, adding that the Sahwa leader himself escaped unharmed.

In Anbar province, four people were killed and 19 others wounded by artillery and mortar shelling on several neighborhoods in militant-seized city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, a medical source from the city hospital told Xinhua.

The bombardment also damaged several houses and set fire to several shops in central the city, the source said.

Also in the province, a car bomb went off near the government compound of the city if Haditha, some 200 km west of Baghdad, leaving three policemen and five civilians wounded, a provincial police source told Xinhua.

Anbar province has been the scene of fierce clashes that flared up after Iraqi police dismantled an anti-government protest site outside Ramadi in late December last year.

Iraq is witnessing some of its worst violence in recent years. According to the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, a total of 8,868 Iraqis, including 7,818 civilians and civilian police personnel, were killed in 2013, the highest annual death toll in years.