Six killed in Iraq attacks

Six people were killed and 18 others injured Monday in separate bombings and shootings across Iraq, police said.

In northern Iraq, a roadside bomb struck a police patrol in the western part of the city of Mosul, some 400 km north of Iraq's capital Baghdad, leaving a civilian dead and five people wounded, a local police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

A policeman was among those wounded by the blast which also hit a police vehicle, the source said.

In a separate incident, two policemen were wounded in another roadside bomb attack near their patrol in eastern Mosul, the source said.

Meanwhile, two gunmen were killed when a roadside bomb they were trying to plant detonated on a road near a village located some 25 km south of Mosul, the source added.

In Baghdad, five policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb went off near their patrol in Ghazaliyah district in the western part of the capital, an interior ministry source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

In addition, two policemen and three members of a government-backed Sahwa paramilitary group were wounded when gunmen attacked their joint checkpoint in Doura district in southern Baghdad, the source said.

In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, a farmer and a truck driver were killed in two attacks just northeast of the provincial capital city of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, a provincial police source told Xinhua.

Also in the province, a policeman was killed and another wounded in a roadside bomb attack targeting their patrol in Imam Wies area, some 50 km northeast of Baquba, the source said.

Separately, militiamen bombed a Sunni mosque at Abu Khamis village, some 20 km south of Baquba, destroying the mosque without human casualty, the source added.

Violence and sectarian tensions have been running high recently between Sunni and Shia communities in the volatile province of Diyala, as Sunnis and Shias accuse each other of supporting extremists and militiamen.

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.