Two bombs exploded in north-eastern Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 18 people and wounding 37, police and hospital sources said. The first bomb targeted a police patrol in the Iraqi capital's Ur district and the second exploded when emergency services were evacuating the wounded, the sources said. In recent days militants have carried out a campaign against Baghdad's police force, many of the attacks have been aimed at largely unarmed traffic police officers.
Earlier on Thursday a sniper shot and killed a traffic policeman and wounded another in the capital's southern Saidiya district, while a roadside bomb blew up near a traffic police patrol in the north-eastern Sadr City district, wounding two police and a civilian, police and medical sources said.