Four Iraqi police who had been deployed to guard shoppers and vendors at a vegetable market west of Baghdad were among six people killed on Sunday by unknown gunmen, government and security officials said.
"The terrorists opened fire and killed four police at the vegetable market," around 7:00 am (0400 GMT), said Shaker Fazaa, an official in Abu Ghraib, 20 kilometres (12 miles) west of the Iraqi capital.
The security situation around Abu Ghraib, home to the infamous but now renamed prison where US soldiers were pictured abusing Iraqi detainees five years ago, remains volatile and Al-Qaeda linked fighters are still active.
On November 16, gunmen in Iraqi army uniforms launched execution-style attacks in the area, killing 13 members of a tribe who took up arms against Al-Qaeda, a villager and security official said.
In the northern oil hub of Kirkuk, meanwhile, an Iraqi soldier was killed by an unknown gunman in the city's southeast, security officials said.
A private security guard, working outside the headquarters of the National Unity Gathering, headed by a Sunni politician but which includes Shiite members, was also killed in a drive by shooting in northern Kirkuk.
{{/usCountry}}A private security guard, working outside the headquarters of the National Unity Gathering, headed by a Sunni politician but which includes Shiite members, was also killed in a drive by shooting in northern Kirkuk.
{{/usCountry}}Kirkuk has a mixed population of Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen, and long-standing Kurdish demands for the city to be incorporated in their autonomous region in the north have fanned ethnic tensions.