6 killed in Iraq violence

Baghdad, Aug 25 (IANS) A total of six people including a local official were killed and five others injured Saturday in separate gun and bomb attacks in Iraq, police said.

In Iraq's northern province of Nineveh, gunmen opened fire on Ibrahim Younis, a municipal council member, near his house in Doumiz district in southeastern the provincial capital city of Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, and shot him dead, a provincial police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

In a separate incident, a policeman and a civilian were killed when unidentified gunmen attacked them in western Mosul and fled the scene, the source said.

Also in the same province, Iraqi security forces carried out search operations since Friday and arrested six wanted individuals, the source added.

In the eastern province of Diyala, a policeman was killed by gunmen near his house in al-Mafraq area, just west of the provincial capital city of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, a provincial police source anonymously told Xinhua.

In addition, a sticky bomb attached to the car of a former member of the government-backed Awakening Council group went off in the town of al-Muradiyah, some 15 km southwest of Baquba, injuring him and his son, the source said.

The Awakening Council group, also known as Sons of Iraq movement or Sahwa, consists of mostly anti-US Sunni insurgent militant groups, who turned their rifles to fight Al Qaeda network after Sahwa's leaders became dismayed by Al Qaeda's brutality and religious zealotry in the country.

Elsewhere, a farmer and his daughter were wounded when a roadside bomb detonated near their car in the town of al-Kuba, some 20 km northeast of Baquba, the source added.

In west of the Iraqi capital, unknown gunmen opened fire on a group of people in a town located in southeast of the city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, killing a civilian and injuring a policeman, a local police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

In Abu-Ghraib area, some 20 km west of Baghdad, an army officer was gunned down by a sniper, the source said.

Violence and sporadic high-profile bomb attacks still common in the Iraqi cities despite the dramatic decrease in violence since its peak in 2006 and 2007 when the country was engulfed in sectarian killings.