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Violent attacks kill 25 in Iraq

19 March 2014 23:23 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Twenty-five people were killed and 55 wounded in separate attacks across Iraq on Wednesday, police said.

In Anbar province, sporadic shelling and fierce clashes erupted after midnight and continued during the day between gunmen and Iraqi soldiers in the city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, killing 11 people and wounding 23 others, a provincial police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

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.

Meanwhile, four policemen, including an officer, were killed and some 20 others wounded in a car bomb explosion near a police force in Ishaqi area, some 90 km north of Baghdad, a local police source told Xinhua.

The incident occurred when the local security forces received reports about a suspected car with an unidentified body inside, the source said, adding that a police force rushed to the scene but the car apparently was booby trapped and the body was an attempt to attract the police.

In a separate incident, unidentified gunmen shot dead two civilians from al-Shabak minority at a parking lot in the city of Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, a local police source said.

The Shabak people are a Shiite minority group living in Iraq's northern province of Nineveh, particularly around Mosul.

Near Baghdad, two civilians were killed when armed men opened fire randomly on a marketplace in Taji area, some 20 km north of Baghdad, a police source anonymously told Xinhua.

Separately, two soldiers were killed and three other wounded when gunmen attacked their checkpoint in Abu Ghraib area, some 25 km west of Baghdad, the source said.

Abu Ghraib was also the scene of another attack when two roadside bombs went off in a quick succession, leaving a civilian killed and five others wounded, the source added.

In addition, a roadside bomb exploded near a popular restaurant in Palestine Street in the eastern part of Baghdad, wounding four people, a police source said.

In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, one police commando officer and two of his guards were killed by gunmen using silenced weapons near the town of Wajihiyah near the provincial capital city of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, a provincial police source said.

Iraq has been plagued with violence for years. However, 2013 was the bloodiest year since the sectarian violence began to decrease in 2008.

A total of 8,868 Iraqis, including 7,818 civilians and police personnel, were killed in 2013. The Iraqi government has frequently warned and complained of the spillover of violence from the crisis in neighboring Syria.