Spate of bomb attacks, shootings kill 16 across Iraq

USPA News - At least sixteen people were killed and more than 30 others were injured Monday when a spate of shootings and bomb attacks targeted both civilians and security forces across Iraq, police said on Tuesday. Among those killed was one child.

Several of the attacks took place in northern Kirkuk Governorate, where a car bomb and an improvised explosive device (IED) targeted the northern entrance of the provincial government complex in Kirkuk, the capital of the governorate which carries the same name. The attack killed at least one person, injured 15 others and destroyed about a dozen vehicles. In other incidents in the province, two police officers were killed when unidentified gunmen using silenced weapons opened fire at policemen on a road between Kirkuk and Salah ad Din Governorate. Gunmen also injured a member of the security forces west of Kirkuk while a car bomb targeted a police patrol in southwest Kirkuk, injuring three police officers. In a desert region west of the city of Samarra, unidentified gunmen stormed the house of anti-al-Qaeda militiamen and killed two brothers and their father. A car bomb explosion in a neighborhood of Tuz Khurmatu, east of Tikrit in Salah ad Din Governorate, killed one police officer and injured 3 others. In Diyala Governorate, four family members were killed when a suspected al-Qaeda insurgent burst into a house in the village of Sinsil, northeast of Muqdadiyah. Among the victims were two women. Security forces later surrounded the area and killed the attacker, police said. Meanwhile, in northern Nineveh Governorate, a man was killed while his wife and brother were injured when an improvised explosive device went off in eastern Mosul. An improvised explosive device also struck a military patrol in the same region, killing a child and injuring three other civilians. A roadside bomb further struck a vehicle carrying civilians near the city of Ramadi, the capital of Al Anbar Governorate. The bomb struck a vehicle which was carrying two civilians, killing the driver who was pronounced dead at the scene. His passenger was taken to a hospital in unknown condition. Two others were killed and six others were injured in three other attacks across Iraq. Two police officers were killed and two others were injured when gunmen attacked a police checkpoint near Tikrit. And a woman was seriously injured when she was shot in the chest while going to work in a village in Babil Governorate. The other attack took place when several improvised explosive devices were detonated at the house of a police officer north of Baghdad, the capital of Iraq. Police sources said three family members were injured but the police officer himself was not at home at the time of the attack. Although violence in Iraq has declined dramatically since its peak in 2006 and 2007, political turmoil and sectarian violence has been on the rise following the pullout of the last U.S. soldiers in December 2011. Hundreds of people have been killed this year in waves of attacks across the country.