The gun and bomb attacks took to 256 the number of people killed nationwide so far this month, according to an AFP tally, already equal to the comparable figure from July.

In Baghdad, five people were shot dead and two wounded in three separate attacks, officials said.

Gunmen armed with silencer-equipped pistols shot dead three security guards in Baghdad's eastern district of Zayouna, an interior ministry official and a medic at the capital's Al-Kindi Hospital said.

Another shooting in Urr, a neighbourhood in north Baghdad, left two policemen dead and another wounded, the interior ministry official and a doctor at nearby Imam Ali Hospital said.

A gun attack at Al-Wathak intersection in the centre of the capital, meanwhile, left a sheikh wounded, medical sources said.

Just west of the capital, three soldiers were killed and two others were wounded by two roadside bombs that detonated as they patrolled nearby, Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Jerefi said.

Doctor Hamed Tafesh from Fallujah hospital confirmed the toll from the attack in the town of Garma in Anbar province.

Authorities also found two dead bodies in the northern ethnically mixed province of Kirkuk, with officials saying they believed both people were killed by gunfire earlier on Sunday.

One of the bodies was of a generator operator, while another was of an unidentified woman, police and medics in Kirkuk province said.

Late on Saturday, three soldiers were wounded by a roadside bomb north of Baquba, a city 60 kilometres (37 miles) north of Baghdad, security and medical sources said.