Baghdad, Dec 31 (IANS) At least 10 people were killed and 26 others wounded in separate violent attacks, including a spate of car bombings, across Iraq Tuesday, police said.
Two car bombs detonated in Zaafaraniyah district of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad before the sunset, killing at least four people and wounding 10 others, Xinhua reported quoting a police source as saying.
Another car bomb went off in Kamaliyah district in eastern Baghdad, killing a civilian and wounding five others, the source said, adding that 11 people were wounded when a fourth car bomb ripped through Jamila district in the east of the capital.
A journalist was shot dead by a sniper when he was covering a fierce clash that occurred late Monday between gunmen and Iraqi security forces in the city of Ramadi, some 110 km from Baghdad, police said.
According to Muaiyad al-Lami, head of the Iraqi Journalists’ syndicate, at least 390 journalists have been killed in Iraq since 2003.
In another incident, Iraqi security forces shot dead four snipers Tuesday morning in a clash with Al Qaeda militants in Ramadi, a source from Anbar province’s operations command said.
A police source said that sporadic clashes occurred overnight and on Tuesday in the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah, while the curfew continued in several other cities across the province.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki Tuesday sought to defuse tensions in Anbar by announcing the withdrawal of the army from the cities in the province. However, he said the army will continue its manhunt for Al Qaeda militants into desert of Anbar.
Iraq is witnessing its worst violence in recent years. According to the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, about 8,109 Iraqis, including 952 members of Iraqi security forces, were killed in the country from January to November this year.
