Iraq attacks kill five

Attacks, targeted mainly at Iraqi security forces, kill five people.

MOSUL: Attacks mainly targeting Iraqi security forces killed five people, among them four policemen, and wounded 16 on Sunday, security and medical officials said.

So far this month, attacks have killed 55 people, 42 of them members of the security forces, according to an AFP tally based on security and medical sources.

In the deadliest attack, gunmen shot dead three police at a checkpoint in a market in Mosul in northern Iraq, police First Lieutenant Khalaf al-Juburi said, a toll confirmed by a doctor from Mosul General Hospital.

In Kirkuk, two roadside bombs killed one policeman and wounded seven others, a security official and a doctor from a hospital in the northern city said.

In Baghdad, a car bomb in the Qahira area targeted the convoy of Brigadier General Mohammed Ghazi, the head of the personal protection directorate in the interior ministry, wounding him, two guards and three civilians, a ministry official said.

A medical official at Al-Kindi hospital, meanwhile, said the facility had received one body and six wounded people, among them three police, including the brigadier general.

The interior ministry official and a medical source also said a sticky bomb wounded a tribal leader in north Baghdad.

And gunmen attacked a checkpoint in the southwestern province of Salaheddin, wounding two police, police and a medic said.

While violence has decreased compared with its peak in 2006 and 2007, attacks remain common across Iraq. There were attacks on 27 of the 31 days in July.

Official figures put the number of people killed in attacks in July at 325, the highest monthly death toll since August 2010.