24 killed in Iraq attacks

At least 24 people were killed and 29 wounded in a wave of attacks witnessed across the country Monday, Iraqi police and medical sources said.

In Salahudin province, two soldiers and a civilian were killed and 16 wounded when a car bomb was detonated near a popular restaurant in the city of Tuz-Khurmato, some 90 km from Tikrit city, Xinhua quoted a provincial police source as saying.

Two policemen were gunned down in the province by armed men near Baiji city, some 30 km from Tikrit, the source said.

In Baghdad, gunmen using silenced weapons shot dead a government employee when he was driving his private car on a highway in the eastern part of Baghdad, a police source said.

In Anbar province, two soldiers were killed and six wounded when fierce clashes erupted in Albu-Assaf area, just northwest of the provincial capital city of Ramadi, some 110 km west of Baghdad, a provincial police source said.

In another incident, gunmen attacked an army force in central Ramadi, leaving a soldier killed and two wounded, along with seizing a military armored vehicle, the source said.

In addition, air strikes and artillery shelling on the city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, and the nearby town of Saqlawiyah, killed 15 people and wounded five, the source said.

Iraq is currently witnessing some of its worst violence in recent years.