5 killed, 14 wounded in bomb attacks in Iraq

A total of five people were killed and 14 others injured on Sunday in separate bomb attacks mainly targeting Iraqi security forces, security sources said.

In one attack, a booby-trapped car detonated near a fuel station in Halabsa area, just west of the city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, leaving two people killed and nine others wounded, a local security source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The massive blast destroyed several civilian cars and badly damaged nearby buildings, the source said.

In Iraq's northern central province of Salahudin, two policemen were killed and three others wounded in a roadside bomb explosion near their vehicle in the village of Yankja, just west of the town of Tuz-Khurmato, some 180 km north of Baghdad, a provincial security source told Xinhua.

In the eastern province of Diyala, a member of a government-backed paramilitary group, known as Hashd Shaabi, was killed and two others were wounded when a roadside bomb struck their vehicle while patrolling an orchard near the town of Abu-Saida in northeast of the provincial capital city of Baquba, which itself located some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, a provincial security source told Xinhua.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the Islamic State (IS) militant group, in most cases, is responsible for targeting Iraqi security forces as well as crowded areas, including markets, cafes and mosques across the country.

Terrorist acts, violence and armed conflicts killed 2,885 Iraqis and wounded 1,380 others in November across Iraq, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq said.

The attacks came as the Iraqi security forces backed by anti-IS international coalition are carrying out a major offensive to drive out the IS militants from its last major stronghold in and around Mosul.

Many blame the current chronic instability, cycle of violence, and the emergence of extremist groups, such as the IS, on the U.S., which invaded and occupied Iraq in March 2003. Endit