Police: 11 killed in attacks across Iraq

BAGHDAD – Eleven people have been killed across Iraq in separate drive-by shootings and bombings including one that targeted members of an anti-al-Qaida militia, Iraqi officials said Wednesday.

In the most deadly attack, a roadside bomb killed four people in the town of Shurqat, 155 miles (250 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad.

Three of the dead were members of the Sons of Iraq, a Sunni militia that has been instrumental in lessening al-Qaida's deadly role in the country. Members of the group are often targeted by al-Qaida out of revenge and to intimidate others from joining them.

A Shurqat police official said that first a roadside bomb exploded near a police patrol in the town, which is just north of Saddam Hussein's hometown, Tikrit.

No one was killed in that bombing but as people gathered nearby to assess the damage, another roadside blast exploded just five minutes later and killed the three Sunni militia members and one bystander. Ten civilians were also wounded by the second blast.

Dr. Abdullah Hassan of the Shurqat hospital confirmed the death toll.

Later Wednesday, three people were killed in separate incidents in Baghdad and the southern city of Basra.

An Iraqi army brigadier general was killed when a bomb attached to his vehicle exploded in the southwest of the capital, police and medical officials said.

Gunmen in a speeding car shot and killed an employee of the Housing Ministry in a Sunni neighborhood in the western part of the capital, police said.

And in Iraq's second-largest city, 340 miles (550 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad, a prominent Shiite tribal leader was killed by gunmen in a drive by shooting, police and medical officials said.

Late Tuesday, a surgeon and an engineer at Baghdad International Airport were gunned down in a mostly Sunni neighborhood in western Baghdad, police said. A worker at Yarmouk hospital confirmed the killings.

Separately, police and hospitals officials said an Education Ministry professor was shot in another Sunni area in northeastern Baghdad.

Police also said a passer-by was slain in a drive-by shooting in the northeastern city of Kirkuk.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.