Iraq violence leaves 33 dead

Suicide bombers and mortar fire have left 14 dead, while six members of a family have been shot dead in violence across Iraq.

Militants have attacked local government and police buildings in northern Iraq with suicide bombings and mortar fire, sparking clashes that killed 14 people.

The killings were among 33 deaths nationwide on Wednesday, officials said.

The assault came in Hawijah, a Sunni Arab town in ethnically mixed Kirkuk province near which security forces stormed an anti-government protest camp in April, triggering Iraq's deadliest day this year.

One suicide bomber detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle near a police station, while a second blew up another near a local administrative building.

Militants then hit both buildings and a local council office with mortar fire, and gunmen clashed with the army.

Seven civilians, three soldiers and four militants were killed and 22 people wounded, army Staff Major General Mohammed Khalaf al-Dulaimi said.

In the capital, six members of a single family were shot dead.

A man, his wife, their three children, aged between three and six, and another woman were killed in the Shaab area of east Baghdad, officials said, while at least one person was killed and nine wounded by a bomb near a cafe in the capital.

North of Baghdad, a bomb exploded near Balad, killing five people and wounding three, while gunmen killed two farmers in the Muqdadiyah area and a soldier in Taji.

And a bomb killed three people and wounded 25 in Mosul, while one person was also shot dead in the northern city.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said in speech on Wednesday that there has been "killing by identity card and name", referring to the selection of victims on the basis of the confessional or ethnic affiliation given away by their family or given name.

With the latest violence, more than 670 people have been killed this month and over 4,500 since the beginning of the year, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources.


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Source: AAP



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