14 killed in insurgent attacks in Iraq

At least 14 people were killed and 55 others wounded in separate shooting and bombing incidents across Iraq Thursday, police said.

Seven people were killed and 45 injured in a coordinated suicide bombing and twin car bomb attacks in Tuz-Khurmato city, some 90 km east of Tikrit, provincial capital of Salahudin, Xinhua reported citing a police source.

The first attack took place when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a busy marketplace in Askari district. It was followed by two car bomb explosions at the scene, the source said.

The ethnically mixed city of Tuz-Khurmato is part of the disputed areas claimed by the Kurds and both Arabs and Turkomans. The Kurds want to incorporate areas at the edges of their current Kurdistan region into their domain, which is fiercely opposed by the Baghdad government.

Also in the province, a policeman was killed in a roadside bomb explosion near his car in Yathrib town, some 80 km south of Tikrit, the source added.

A member of a government-backed Sahwa paramilitary group was shot dead by gunmen while leaving a shop in Seniyah town, some 30 km north of Tikrit, he said.

In northern Iraq, three soldiers were killed and three others wounded in a roadside bomb explosion near their patrol in Mosul city, some 400 km north of Baghdad, a police source said.

In another incident, unidentified gunmen opened fire on a car carrying three off-duty soldiers in eastern Mosul, killing one of them and wounding the two others, the source said.

In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, gunmen shot dead a farmer in his orchard in Abu Sayda town, some 90 km northeast of Baghdad, while a woman and two of her children were wounded in a roadside bomb explosion near their car in the nearby city of Maqdadiyah, a police source said.

A policeman and his wife were wounded in a roadside bomb explosion in front of their house in western Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, the source said.

Iraq is witnessing its worst eruption of violence in recent years. According to the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, around 6,000 Iraqis were killed and over 14,000 others injured from January to September this year.