22 killed in Iraq attacks

At least 22 people, including policemen, were killed and 24 wounded in a string of attacks carried out across Iraq Thursday, police and medical sources said.

In northern Iraq, gunmen broke into a house of a policeman in Mosul city, and shot him dead besides his brother and one of his relatives, Xinhua quoted a police source as saying.

In a separate incident, a car bomb went off near a police patrol in the western part of Mosul, leaving two policemen and three passers-by wounded, the source said.

Meanwhile, gunmen opened fire on a police vehicle on a main road near Baiji city, some 200 km from Baghdad, killing two policemen, including a police officer, and wounding another.

Near Baghdad, a police officer was killed and four policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb struck their patrol in Rashdiyah area, a police source said.

In Anbar province, gunmen attacked a checkpoint manned jointly by policemen and members of a government-backed Sahwa paramilitary group in Ramadi city, some 110 km from Baghdad, killing two policemen and wounding as many besides two Sahwa members, a police source said.

In Ramadi, a gunman was killed when four roadside bombs detonated prematurely in his car while he was driving in the city, the source said.

Separately, anti-government gunmen attacked an army base in Haswa area just east of the militant-seized city of Fallujah, some 50 km from Baghdad, leaving three soldiers killed and five wounded.

In addition, seven people were killed and five wounded by artillery and mortar shelling on several neighbourhoods in the besieged Fallujah city, a hospital source said.

In Diyala province, provincial leader of ISIL Abu Anas al-Shami and two of his aides as Iraqi security forces carried out an operation targeting Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants in provincial capital city of Baquba, some 65 km from Baghdad, a police source said.