Iraq attacks kill at least 18, including army general: police, medics

Violence in Iraq has hit its highest level as more that 8,000 people have been killed this year.

BAGHDAD: At least 18 people were killed in attacks across Iraq on Sunday, including a military general in a bombing in the northern city of Mosul, police and medical sources said.

Violence in Iraq has hit its highest levels since the sectarian fighting of 2006-7, which killed tens of thousands of people. More than 8,000 people have been killed this year, according to the United Nations.

A suicide bomber killed at least eight soldiers, including a brigadier general and three other officers, when he blew himself up by their convoy in the eastern part of Mosul, police and medical sources said.

At least four soldiers were killed and ten others wounded when gunmen attacked military barracks in the town of Garma, 30 km northwest of Baghdad, police and medics said.

Four members of a government-backed ‘Sahwa’ militia were also killed in western Baghdad when gunmen attacked their checkpoints in the Abu Ghraib district, police and medics said.

Two people were also killed and six wounded by a bombing in a separate district in western Baghdad, sources said.

Al Qaeda-linked militants have stepped up their attacks in recent months against Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government and anyone seen as supporting it.