Gunmen kill two interior ministry officers in Baghdad

No immediate claim of responsibility for attack; at least two killed in separate bomb attack in southern Baghdad

BAGHDAD: Gunmen in speeding cars opened fire on a vehicle transporting Iraqi interior ministry officials in Baghdad on Monday, killing two officers, police and medics said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which also wounded one person in the Baladiyat district of eastern Baghdad.

Iraq is facing a major security threat from Islamic State, an ultra-hardline extremist group which controls a third of the country as well as parts of neighbouring Syria.

The presence of the insurgents has exacerbated a sectarian conflict in the major oil producer and OPEC member with a Shia-led government.

In the Abu Dsheer district in southern Baghdad, at least two people were killed and seven wounded when a bomb exploded near a crowded market, police and medical sources said.

Efforts to contain Islamic State are currently focused on the Sunni heartland Anbar province in the west of the country and the town of Baiji in the north, near Iraq's biggest refinery.