15 killed in attacks in Iraq

At least 15 people were killed and 29 others wounded Tuesday in violent attacks in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad and the eastern province of Diyala, police said.

In Baghdad, four people were killed and 10 others wounded in a car bomb explosion at a busy intersection in the Shiite neighbourhood of Sadr city in the eastern part of the capital, a police source told Xinhua.

The toll could rise as ambulances and civilian vehicles evacuated the wounded to different hospitals and medical centres in the city, the source said.

In a separate incident, two policemen and a member of a government-backed Sahwa paramilitary group were killed and five policemen were wounded when a bomb planted at their joint checkpoint detonated in al-Wahda district in the southern Baghdad, the source said.

Mutar Hussein, a judge, and his driver were shot dead by gunmen using silenced weapons near Qahtan Square in Yarmouk district in western Baghdad, the source added.

Nine people were wounded in a roadside bomb explosion in al-Moheet street in Kadhmiyah district in northern Baghdad, he said.

In Diyala province, gunmen attacked two houses at the edges of the city of Khalis, near the provincial capital city of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, killing five people, three of them from one family, and wounding two others.

Separately, police found the body of a man with bullet holes in the head and the chest outside the town of Buhruz, some 10 km south of Baquba, a police source said.

Three civilians were wounded in a roadside bomb which struck their vehicle near the town of Udheim, some 60 km north of Baquba, the source added.

Iraq is witnessing its worst violence in recent years. According to the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, around 9,000 Iraqis were killed in 2013, which is the highest annual death toll for years.