11 killed, 29 wounded in Iraq's violence
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Up to 11 Iraqis were killed and 29 others were wounded in gunfire and a series of bomb attacks across the country on late Saturday and Sunday, the police said.
Abid Khalaf, an Awakening Council group leader, was killed by a sticky bomb planted in his car in Abu Ghraib area west of Baghdad, a local police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Two of Khalaf's bodyguards were wounded by the attack, the source said.
The Awakening Council is a government-backed anti-al-Qaida paramilitary group who fought the al-Qaida network after the latter exercised indiscriminate killings against both Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities.
In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, a bomb attached to the car of Ismail Jawad, another government-backed group leader, detonated, killing him and wounding his bodyguard in Jurf al-Milih area, northeast of the provincial capital city of Baquba, a source from the provincial operations command told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
In a separate incident, four policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb struck their vehicle in the town of Naft-Khana, some 75 km northeast of Baquba, near the Iraqi-Iranian border, the source said.
Diyala province, which stretches from the eastern edges of Baghdad to the Iranian border east of the country, has long been a stronghold for al-Qaida militants and other insurgent groups since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
In Baghdad, five people, including two soldiers, were wounded in the afternoon by roadside bomb attacks in western and southern the capital, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Earlier in the day, the ministry source said that a total of nine people were killed and 17 others were wounded in and near Baghdad on late Saturday and early Sunday.
He said a roadside bomb struck a police patrol near the Football Shaab Stadium in eastern Baghdad, killing two policemen and wounding another.
Late on Saturday, three people were killed and two others wounded when gunmen in a car opened fire at Sunni worshippers as they were leaving a mosque after the night prayers in the town of Jurf al-Sakhar, 60 km south of Baghdad, the source said.
Jurf al-Sakhar, is part of the once restive area, dubbed Triangle of Death, which is a cluster of towns scattered north of Hilla City, the capital of Babil province, some 100 km south of Baghdad.
In the morning, the source said that four people were killed in two bomb attacks in the capital, one of which was an explosion caused by a bomb planted in a mini-van carrying passengers while moving on the al-Qanat Street in eastern Baghdad in the morning, killing three people and wounding up to 11 others.
Also in the morning, the source said that three explosive charges detonated simultaneously outside a complex of colleges in Bab al-Mu'adham area in downtown Baghdad, killing a civilian and wounding three others.
Violence are still common in Iraqi cities as part of recent deterioration in security which shaped a setback to the efforts of the Iraqi government to restore normalcy in the country more than five months after violence-torn Iraq held parliamentary elections on March 7.
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