Seven people were killed in attacks across Iraq on Monday, security sources said. Among the dead were four shepherds targeted outside the main northern city of Mosul.
Police said that unidentified gunmen killed the four outside the mixed city, 370 kilometres (230 miles) north of Baghdad, that the US military says is the last urban bastion of Al-Qaeda militants in the violence-wracked country.
In the capital itself, three people, including a policeman, were killed after a motorist threw a hand grenade at a police checkpoint, an interior ministry spokesman said.
The man hurled the device at traffic police who stopped him in the Al-Alawi district of central Baghdad and asked to see his documents.
The blast killed three people and wounded 14 -- four policemen among them, the spokesman said.
Police are now hunting the motorist who fled the scene after the attack, he added.