19 killed in Iraq attacks

At least 19 people were killed and 26 wounded in a spate of attacks in Iraq Thursday, most of them targeting security forces, police said.

Ten soldiers and four civilians were killed when a suicide bomber attacked an army checkpoint with a booby-trapped tank near Ramadi city, 100 km from Baghdad, reported Xinhua citing a police source. The attack also injured 10 other people, including four soldiers.

Unidentified gunmen opened fire with machine-guns at a checkpoint of the Iraqi army in the Aslah neighbourhood in Mosul city, some 400 km from Baghdad, killing two soldiers, a police source said.

Two Iraqi soldiers were killed and four civilians wounded when a roadside bomb targeted an Iraqi army patrol in the Baath neighbourhood in eastern Mosul, he added.

In another incident, some unidentified gunmen shot a woman to death before her house in another area, located east of Mosul, the police said, adding in a separate incident eight people, including two soldiers, were wounded when a car bomb exploded in Tal Afar, 70 km west of Mosul.

At least two policemen and as many civilians were injured when a car bomb went off at a parking lot of a government office in Kirkuk city, some 250 km from Baghdad, a police source said.