Baku-APA. Eighteen people were killed and 15 others wounded in separate incidents across Iraq on Wednesday, police sources said, APA reports quoting Xinhua.
In Anbar province, Iraqi soldiers shot dead four would-be suicide bombers, linked to Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), who were wearing explosive vests while preparing to storm an army base in downtown Ramadi, the provincial capital, some 110 km west of Baghdad, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Separately, fierce clashes erupted between gunmen and Iraqi soldiers in al-Saqlawiyah area, just north of the city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, leaving 11 gunmen killed and nine others wounded, the source added without giving further details about the casualties among the troops.
Also in Anbar province, a gunman was killed when a bomb he was preparing detonated in his house in the city of Haditha, some 200 km west of Baghdad, the source said.
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.
Elsewhere, two members of a government-backed Sahwa paramilitary group were killed and two others wounded when gunmen attacked their checkpoint near the city of Samarra, some 120 km north of Baghdad, a local police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
A policeman was gunned down by armed men in Salahudin's provincial capital city of Tikrit, some 170 km north of Baghdad, while four policemen were wounded in another attack on a police station in the city of Sulaiman Beg, some 90 km east of Tikrit, a police source said.
Also in Sulaiman Beg, gunmen detonated bombs in a house of a parliament candidate running for the National Coalition, led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, destroying part of the house, but there were no injuries as the house was empty at the time of attack, the source said.
The latest attacks came just a week ahead of landmark parliamentary elections on April 30, the first in the country since the withdrawal of U.S. troops in late 2011.