BAGHDAD – At least five people killed, 10 others wounded of Friday in series of attacks targetting Iraq’s security forces across violence-torn country.
Three people were killed and 13 others wounded when a suicide car bomb exploded in Baghdad, police and hospital officials said.
The blast occurred in the restive Palestine Street district as police from the nearby Zayuna station were setting up a checkpoint, police commander Jabbar Hassan said.
A policeman at the Kindi hospital said one policeman was killed and 10 people, mostly police, were wounded in the blast.
He said a doctor and his wife also died in the blast.
Three more wounded people were taken to Ibn al-Nafees hospital.
Two Iraqi police officers were killed north of Baghdad Thursday in continued attacks against Iraqi security forces, police and a hospital official said Friday.
One was gunned down in the center of the restive city of Baquba, while the other was killed in a mortar attack in a nearby town.
"Lieutenant Ali Hamid was walking towards the center of town when unknown gunmen opened fire on him," said Dr Ayad Mohammed at the Baquba hospital.
He was not in uniform when he was killed, Mohammed said.
Baquba, 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of Baghdad, has been the scene of increased violence over the past week, with at least 36 insurgents killed during day-long clashes with US-led forces Monday.
The other officer, Lieutenant Wamid Raad, was killed in a mortar attack near his police post in Moqdadiyah, 45 kilometers northeast of Baquab, police said.
Meanwhile, two Iraqis were killed and nine wounded when clashes broke out after Iraqi national guardsmen raided a Sunni mosque in Baghdad's Adhamiya neighbourhood following weekly Friday prayers, hospital sources said.
"We have received two killed and nine wounded, eight of them in serious condition," said Amin Lamin from Al-Numan hospital.
The clashes broke out in the Al-Hanifa mosque, which is considered one of the most important Sunni places of worship in Iraq and has already been raided several times by US forces in recent months.
After prayers, some 200 to 300 national guardsmen stormed the mosque, throwing sound grenades and firing shots in the air.
The purpose of the raid was not immediately clear but some worshippers, gathered outside the mosque, said the security forces had arrested the mosque imam, Sheikh Muayed al-Adhami.
Soon after, US forces arrived on the scene, entered the mosque, posting soldiers on the roof. Women were allowed to leave the premises but men were kept inside.
Dozens of the mosque's guards were forced to lie on the ground by the US troops.
During his sermon, the imam had charged that after their devastating onslaught on the insurgent city of Fallujah in western Iraq, US forces would target Latifiyah.
The town, which lies a few kilometres south of Baghdad, commands access to most of southern Iraq from the capital and has become known as an area where scores of Iraqis and foreigners have been killed or kidnapped by Sunni rebels.
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