17 killed in Iraq bombings, shootings

BAGHDAD: At least 17 people were killed in Iraq on Monday, including seven in two car bomb attacks in Baghdad, security officials and medics said.

An explosives-laden car, parked on a road in central Baghdad's Karrada neighbourhood, exploded at around 11 am, security officials said.

A few minutes later another car bomb went off in the same area targeting a passing police patrol, they said.

At least seven people, including three policemen, were killed and another 30 including women were wounded in the attacks, security officials and a medic at the capital's Ibn Nafis hospital said.

A civilian was killed and another seven wounded in a roadside bomb blast that struck a minibus in central Baghdad's Kifah street, security officials said.

In another brutal attack on Monday, five Iraqi soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb near the Iranian border.

Iraqi army Lieutenant Muntadhar Mohammed said the bomb targeted the soldier patrol between the towns of Badra and Bela Druz, 180 kilometres east of Baghdad.

"All the five members of the patrol were killed in the early morning attack," Mohammed said.

In the southern city of Amara, gunmen shot dead a former Baath party member, police said.

Gunmen also killed a man and wounded his wife when they shot at the couple's car on a highway near the town of Iskandiriyah, south of Baghdad, a local police officer said.

Another policeman was also killed in an armed assault at a police checkpoint in central Iskandiriyah, he said.