Iraq attacks kill nine

Nine people have been killed in attacks in Iraq's Sunni-majority areas just hours after seven soldiers were shot dead at a northern checkpoint.

Attacks in Sunni-majority areas of Iraq have killed nine people, a month before parliamentary polls. (AAP)

Attacks in Sunni-majority areas of Iraq have killed nine people, exactly a month ahead of parliamentary polls.

Sunday's violence came hours after seven soldiers were shot dead at a checkpoint in a late-night attack by militants in the north, the latest in a surge in bloodshed that has killed more than 2200 people this year.

The unrest has been driven principally by anger in the Sunni Arab minority over alleged mistreatment at the hands of the Shi'ite-led authorities, as well as by the civil war raging in neighbouring Syria.

A suicide bomber detonated a vehicle packed with explosives on a major bridge in Ramadi, west of Baghdad where security forces are grappling to retain control after militants took several neighbourhoods two months ago.

The blast killed seven people and wounded 10, and also badly damaged the Hauz Bridge, a key crossing used by civilians connecting the north and south of the city.

Ramadi originally had five bridges across the Euphrates River before a militant surge earlier this year.

But two are used exclusively by security forces, and two others - including the Hauz - have now been damaged to the point they can no longer be used.

Civilians in Ramadi are now able to use only the Albu Faraj bridge in the north of the city.

Ramadi is the capital of Anbar province, a predominantly Sunni desert region in west Iraq that shares a border with Syria.

In early January, anti-government fighters seized control of parts of the city and all of nearby Fallujah, also in Anbar.

But while security forces have managed to take back most of Ramadi, a stalemate persists in Fallujah, which remains in militant control.

Illustrating the control militants hold over Fallujah, anti-government fighters held a funeral for a senior leader of the powerful Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant jihadist group on Sunday, after he and two of his aides were killed in an artillery strike a day earlier.

Witnesses said a heavily-armed convoy of vehicles accompanied the funeral for Abdulrahman al-Kuwaiti, who entered Anbar from Syria, according to a security official.

Elsewhere on Sunday, two police officers were killed when a roadside bomb exploded near their car in Tikrit north of Baghdad. Like Ramadi, Tikrit's population is mostly Sunni Arabs.

The attacks came just hours after militants opened fire on an army checkpoint near the restive northern city of Mosul, killing seven soldiers.

In Mosul city itself, gunmen also killed a doctor.