Iraq attacks kill nine

Bomb and gun attacks in Iraq have killed nine people, including a mayor, four soldiers and two family members of a Shiite cleric, and wounded 22 others, security officials said on Wednesday.

Bomb and gun attacks in Iraq have killed nine people, including a mayor, four soldiers and two family members of a Shiite cleric, and wounded 22 others, security officials said on Wednesday.

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"A car bomb targeted an Iraqi army patrol in Al-Zuhour neighbourhood, killing three soldiers and wounding three civilians" in Mosul in Iraq's north, a first lieutenant in the Mosul police said.

"Another car bomb exploded ... in the same neighborhood, killing two civilians and wounding 16," he said, adding that the bombs went off about 9:00 am (0600 GMT).

A doctor at Mosul General Hospital confirmed the deaths, saying: "We received five bodies, including three soldiers."

In Iskandiriyah, 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of Baghdad, "unknown armed men attacked the house of Safaa al-Mussawi, a Friday prayer leader, with bombs" during the night, a police first lieutenant said.

The Shiite cleric "and his son were seriously injured and his wife and daughter were killed," the officer said.

A source in the office of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's top Shiite cleric, confirmed the attack on Mussawi's home.

The mayor of Iskandiriyah was killed on Tuesday night, a police source said.

"Armed men killed the mayor of the Iskandiriyah sub-district yesterday night. His name was Ali al-Massudi, from the Sadr movement," the source said, referring to the movement of anti-US Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

And one Iraqi soldier was killed and another wounded in an attack by gunmen on a patrol in the Iskandiriyah area, an army captain said.