Insurgents killed at least 17 people in bombings and shootings in Iraq on Wednesday, including nine policemen in attacks in northern Samarra town and near Kirkuk, security officials said. The predominantly Sunni town of Samarra was shaken by a roadside bomb which targetted a police patrol, killing five police officers and two civilians, police Captain Alaa al-Samarrai said.
The attack, which wounded another two people including a policeman, took place in a neighbourhood near the revered Shiite shrine of Al-Askari. The shrine was bombed earlier this month and since then the town has seen several other attacks. In north Baghdad, a roadside bomb exploded in a market, killing five people, according to a security official citing an initial report. The official said another 10 people were wounded. One civilian was also killed in a suicide car bomb attack on a police checkpoint in central Baghdad's Jadiriyah neighbourhood.
Unidentified gunmen, meanwhile, killed four policemen and wounded one when they attacked a police station in the town of Taza, near the northern oil city of Kirkuk, police Major General Torhan Yussef said.