Nine killed in Iraq violence

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2008

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Three bomb attacks and a shootout claimed the lives of nine people and wounded more than two dozen in Iraq on Sunday, security officials said.

Four Iraqi soldiers were killed and eight others were wounded when a roadside bomb blasted their patrol in the town of Bala Druz, near the restive city of Baquba which has long struggled against Al-Qaeda.

In Baquba itself, two policemen were killed and six others including a woman were wounded in a shootout when insurgents fired at a police patrol, a security official with the defence ministry said.

Earlier this month Iraqi forces backed by US troops launched a massive assault against insurgents and jihadists in Diyala, the province surrounding Baquba and one of Iraq's most dangerous areas where...