Attackers killed 13 people and wounded 31 in a series of shootings and explosions that struck a northern Baghdad neighbourhood today, an Interior Ministry source said.
The series of strikes began when gunmen killed three soldiers using silenced guns in the mainly Sunni district of Adhamiya in the north of the Iraqi capital, the source said.
While police and civil defence crews rushed to the scene, five roadside bombs exploded within a radius of one kilometre, killing three civilians and wounding 14, among them seven policemen and civil defence workers.
In Falluja, 50 km west of Baghdad, the scene of heavy fighting with US forces in the past, a roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol killed three soldiers and wounded four others in a northeast district, a police source said.
In a separate incident, another roadside bomb went off near an Iraqi army patrol wounding five soldiers in Falluja.
In Shirqat, 300 km north of Baghdad, a suicide car bomber targeting an Iraqi army base killed three soldiers and wounded eight, army and police sources said.
Meanwhile, several Iraqi security officers shot dead a policeman today while they lined up to receive salaries, mistaking him for a suicide bomber, a police source said.
Members of an Iraqi oil protection force were gathering in their base in the northern city of Mosul when suddenly a car approached and someone shouted “suicide bomber”.
Several troops waiting in line and also guards in a nearby watch tower drew their weapons and opened fire, killing the off-duty policeman who was driving on a wrong lane, the source said.
Iraq is on high alert for insurgent attacks after a March 7th national election produced no clear winner and left the country adrift in political uncertainty.
Overall violence has fallen sharply in Iraq since the peak of sectarian warfare in 2006/07 but bombings and suicide attacks still occur regularly.
On Saturday, three suicide bombers killed at least four policemen and wounded nine police and army personnel in two separate attacks in Iraq's restive northern city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad.
The United States is withdrawing troops from Iraq and handing over responsibility to Iraqi forces with US officials regularly expressing confidence in their skills. US Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen said on Tuesday Iraqi forces were “performing exceptionally well”.
Reuters