Militants have seized control of a village in north Iraq while attacks nationwide have killed 16 people, including 10 policemen, amid a surge in bloodshed ahead of parliamentary elections.
The latest unrest comes barely a week before campaigning begins for the April 30 polls, which are set to be held as Iraq grapples with its worst protracted violence since it emerged from a brutal 2006-07 Sunni-Shi'ite sectarian war that left tens of thousands dead.
The unrest has been primarily driven by anger in the minority Sunni Arab community, which alleges discrimination at the hands of the Shi'ite-led government and security forces, as well as the civil war in neighbouring Syria.
Shootings and bombings on Friday mostly took place in Sunni-majority parts of northern and western Iraq, also leaving 29 wounded, security and medical officials said.
In Sarha, militants mounted a co-ordinated pre-dawn assault on the village involving gunmen and a suicide truck bomb, according to Lieutenant General Abdulamir al-Zaidi, head of a northern Iraq security command, and Shallal Abdul, mayor of the nearby town of Tuz Khurmatu.
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Sarha lies close to the town of Sulaiman Bek, which has repeatedly been targeted in the past year by militants who have sought to take control of the area.
The latest move is a small-scale version of the ongoing, months-long crisis being played out in Iraq's western Anbar province, where militants hold major territory.
Clashes initially broke out early Friday morning in the Sarha region, which lies in Salaheddin province, between anti-government fighters and police manning checkpoints, and an explosion was set off at a bridge in the area as well, according to Abdul.
Shortly thereafter, a suicide bomber set off a truck rigged with explosives near an army base where police and military forces were conducting a senior meeting, killing two people and wounding seven others.
The two killed were police Brigadier General Ragheb al-Timimi and his deputy Colonel Jawad Mohammed, while the wounded included three police and four soldiers.
Elsewhere in Salaheddin, gunmen killed five policemen and wounded five others in an attack on a checkpoint outside Samarra, while three other policemen were killed by a roadside bomb targeting their patrol in Siniyah.
In Anbar province, where militants have held key territory for more than two months, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the middle of a funeral inside a mosque in provincial capital Ramadi, killing six people.
