Security officials, anti-insurgent leader among 4 killed in separate attacks across Iraq

Officials: 4 killed in separate Iraq attacks

BAGHDAD — Four people were killed and several others wounded in separate attacks in Iraq, police and hospital officials said Monday.

Among the dead was a prominent local leader of anti-insurgent Sunni forces known as Awakening Councils who was shot by two gunmen armed with silenced pistols. The attackers fled the scene after attacking Nael al-Azami near a popular cafe in Baghdad’s northern Azamiyah district Monday morning.

Elsewhere in the capital, a roadside bomb struck an Iraqi police patrol in the capital’s Ghadir neighborhood, killing one policeman and wounding 10 bystanders and officers nearby.

In Kirkuk, a policeman died from wounds sustained when a roadside bomb hit his patrol Sunday night. Four of his colleagues were seriously hurt in the blast.

And in Mosul, a parked car bomb struck an Iraqi army patrol Monday afternoon, killing one soldier and seriously wounding a bystander.

A series of other early morning blasts across Baghdad wounded 11 more people.

The first explosion occurred at 7 a.m. when a bomb attached to a civilian SUV exploded while it was heading down Baghdad’s eastern Palestine Street, injuring the driver and a passenger.

About 90 minutes later, two separate roadside bombs targeting police patrols in eastern Baghdad injured a total of five policemen and four bystanders.

The police and hospital officials who described the attacks spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Also on Monday, a three-member electoral board threw out appeals brought by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s bloc against two winning candidates in Diyala province from the rival Iraqiya list, according to Ayad al-Kinandi, a member of the Independent High Electoral Commission.

He said the electoral judiciary panel also ruled that a third candidate — Ibrahim al-Mutlaq of Iraqiya, who was accused of having ties to Saddam Hussein’s outlawed Baath party — would be allowed to serve in the new parliament.

Associated Press Writers Sinan Salaheddin and Qassim Abdul-Zahra contributed to this report.