Iraq violence leaves scores dead

An attack on a funeral, drive-by shootings and suicide attacks have left at least 36 dead across Iraq.

baghdad map

Attacks across Iraq including a suicide bombing at a Sunni funeral have killed at least 36 people authorities have said.

Police on Wednesday also found 13 bodies at two different locations with gunshot wounds to their heads.

Eight of the corpses were found dumped in farmland in the Sunni-dominated Arab Jabour district, a police officer said.

All of the dead, men believed to be between the ages of 25 to 35, suffered gunshot to their heads, he said.

Arab Jabour, a former base for armed groups, is located about 25 kilometres south of Baghdad.

Authorities found another five corpses in a vacant lot in a residential area of the capital’s predominantly Shia northwestern Shula neighbourhood, the officer said.

The slain men, all in their 30s, had their hands and legs tied and suffered gunshots in heads and chests, he said.

Shortly after sunset, 11 mourners were killed and 25 others were wounded when a suicide bomber set off his explosive belt inside a tent where the Sunni funeral was being held in Baghdad’s western suburbs of Abu Ghraib, said local police and hospital officials.

The other attacks ranged from a home invasion to a drive-by shooting to a complex assault on a police station involving a suicide bomber, a mortar strike, and a team of gunmen.

Gunmen armed with silencer-fitted pistols broke into the house of a Sunni family in the predominantly Shia northern Hurriyah neighbourhood on Wednesday in northern Baghdad, killing the parents, two sons and a daughter, a police officer said.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, a bomb exploded in the southern Dora neighbourhood, killing two civilians, authorities said.

Mortar rounds landed in a street in the southwestern Albu Eitha neighbourhood, killing another two.

Gunmen fired on a crowd in the southeastern Bayaa neighbourhood, killing one.

Outside of Baghdad, a suicide bomber rammed his car into a checkpoint manned by the Kurdish security forces in the town of Khanaqin north of Baghdad, killing three, another police officer said.

Teachers killed

Another suicide bomber set off his explosives-laden belt at the gate of a police station in the town of Habbaniyah west of Baghdad, allowing another to enter and blow himself up inside the building, a police officer said.

The blast killed five police officers, he said.

Also to the west of Baghdad, armed men fired two mortar rounds at a police station outside the city of Ramadi, which was then hit by a suicide attacker on foot and gunmen, the officer said.

That attack killed four officers, while police killed two of the gunmen, he said.

A drive-by shooting also killed two school teachers in the town of Hadra, between the northern city of Mosul and western Anbar province, authorities said.

In Mosul, gunmen shot dead a government employee as he was walking near his house.

Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures from the attacks.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to release the information to journalists.

Source: AP