Eight killed in attacks in Iraq

Source:Xinhua Published: 2013-2-15 8:30:42

Eight people were killed and ten wounded in attacks mainly targeting Iraqi security forces in north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad on Thursday, the police said.

In Iraq's northern province of Nineveh, a bodyguard of the Iraqi parliament speaker Osama al-Nujaifi, and his brother, a policeman, were shot dead at dawn when gunmen stormed their house in a village near the town of Hammam al-Alil in south of the provincial capital city of Mosul, 400 km north of Baghdad, a provincial police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Also in the province, two policemen were killed and a third wounded when three roadside bombs exploded simultaneously near their patrol in the town of Shora, some 50 km south of Mosul, the source said.

The Sunni dominated province of Nineveh has been a stronghold for insurgent groups, including Al-Qaeda militants, since the US- led invasion of the country in 2003.

In a separate incident, gunmen in a car attacked a security checkpoint manned by Awakening Council group members at the town of Yathrib, some 80 km north of Baghdad, and clashed with them, a police source from Salahudin province, where the town located, anonymously told Xinhua.

The clash resulted in the killing of two of the group members, while one of the attackers was killed and two wounded, the source added.

The attackers left their car and fled the scene to nearby orchards, and later the security forces discovered that the car was booby-trapped and they defused it without casualty, the source said.

The Awakening Council group, also known as Sons of Iraq movement or Sahwa, consists of mostly anti-US Sunni insurgent militant groups, who turned their rifles to fight Al-Qaeda network after Sahwa's leaders became dismayed by Al-Qaeda's brutality and religious zealotry in the country.

Meanwhile, two roadside bombs went off near a truck carrying farmers near the city of Dujail, some 60 km north of Baghdad, killing a farmer and wounding seven others, the source said.

The attacks came amid weeks of unrest and protests in the Sunni Arab provinces over complaints of being marginalized as well as claims that the Shiite-dominated security forces were indiscriminately arresting their sons and torturing them.

Posted in: Mid-East

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