16 security troops killed in Iraq

At least 16 members of the Iraqi security forces were killed and six others wounded Monday in an attack in Iraq's northern city of Mosul, police said.

A suicide bomber driving a fuel tank loaded with explosives struck a headquarter of the joint forces of the federal police and the Iraqi army west of Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, a local police source told Xinhua.

The fuel tank, which used to belong to the Iraqi army, was seized by militants of the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant, an Al Qaeda breakaway group in Iraq, in clashes with Iraqi security forces a few days ago, the source added.

The attack came after 46 people were killed and 166 others wounded in violent attacks, including suicide bombings, across the country earlier in the day.

The deadliest attack occurred in Salahudin province where twin suicide bombings targeted a Kurdish party office and a parking lot in the ethnically mixed Iraqi city of Tuz-Khurmato, some 90 km east of the provincial capital Tikrit, leaving 25 people killed and 145 others wounded.

Iraq is witnessing some of 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.