Nine killed in series of Iraq attacks

Nine people were killed, including three jewellers and two members of an anti-Qaeda militia, in violence across Iraq yesterday, security officials said.

Nine people were killed, including three jewellers and two members of an anti-Qaeda militia, in violence across Iraq yesterday, security officials said.

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In the southern port city of Basra, the jewellers were killed and two civilians wounded when a gang of four armed men attacked shops in the city's old town at around 8:00 pm (local time). The men shot the jewellers before ransacking the shops, Basra police said.

Two other people were killed and five wounded when a suicide bomber on a motorcycle targeting a US military convoy detonated his explosives in central Iraq. The attack, which occurred at around noon in Al-Muqdadiyah, north of Baghdad in Diyala province, also damaged an American humvee, an official at Diyala operations command said.

The US military did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In the northern town of Sharqat, on the border of Nineveh and Salaheddin provinces, two members of an anti-Qaeda militia, known as the Sahwa (Awakening), were gunned down by armed men in two unmarked cars.

Two other members of the Sahwa, known by the US army as the "Sons of Iraq", were wounded in the 3:00 pm gunfight, Sharqat police said. On the outskirts of the main northern city of Mosul, meanwhile, an off-duty policeman was killed by unidentified gunmen at his home, a police officer said.

And in the west Baghdad neighbourhood of Ghazaliyah, one civilian was killed and two others wounded by a roadside bomb, police said. Today's unrest comes after March parliamentary elections, which have still not resulted in a new government.