Nineteen people were killed and 29 others wounded in gunmen attacks, mainly targeting Iraqi security forces in central and eastern Iraq on Saturday, police said.

In Iraq's northern central province of Salahudin, gunmen attacked several police checkpoints in the early hours of the day in the town of Seiniyah, some 50 km north of the provincial capital city of Tikrit, and fought fierce clashes, leaving four policemen killed and six others injured, a provincial police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Local authorities imposed curfew as reinforcement troops arrived at the town to start an operation to chase the militants, the source said.

In a separate incident, gunmen blew up two houses of police officers in the city of Tikrit, some 170 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, killing a policeman and two civilians and wounding 17 others, the source said.

The provincial authorities also imposed indefinite curfew on Tikrit while police and army troops were deployed across the city, the source added.

In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, gunmen attacked overnight a base of a rapid reaction police force and several nearby outposts in Imam Weis area, some 50 km northeast of the provincial capital city of Baquba, leaving six policemen and four gunmen killed and six more policemen wounded, a provincial police source anonymously told Xinhua.

The commander of the force, Colonel Adnan Farouq, and another officer were among the killed, the source said, adding that the battles which ended in the morning also resulted in the arresting of six gunmen believed to be linked to al-Qaida.

Meanwhile, two gunmen were killed when a roadside bomb detonated while they were planting it on a main road in Taji area, just north of Baghdad, a police source said.

Separately, the Iraqi Defense Ministry on Friday offered bounties of 20 million Iraqi Dinars (16,666 US dollars) to anyone who kills a terrorist from al-Qaida's front the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), 30 million Iraqi Dinars (about 25, 000 US dollars) to anyone who captures a terrorist of ISIL.

The latest government move came to curb the recent escalation of violence, as the country is witnessing 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.