An Iraqi soldier (L) inspects the wreck of a car bomb after it exploded in the military zone of the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on July 11, 2013. (AFP)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AFP) – Attacks mainly targeting security forces killed nine people on Friday in Iraq, including a police brigadier general, a day after 56 people died in bombings and shootings, police and doctors said.
The latest violence came amid a surge of deadly unrest across the country where more than 2,500 people have been killed this year, including more than 260 this month alone.
Analysts point to widespread discontent among Iraq's minority Sunni community, and the Shiite authorities' failure to address their grievances, as the main factors driving the increase in violence.
Gunmen shot dead Brigadier General Sabri Abed Issa on his way to a mosque near Sharqat, northwest of Baghdad, while others killed a retired policeman in front of his home in Muqdadiyah, northeast of the capital.
In the northern city of Mosul, a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle at a police checkpoint, killing four policemen and wounding two others.
A magnetic "sticky bomb" also killed a civilian in Mosul, while a roadside bomb south of the city killed a policeman and wounded another.
And a "sticky bomb" killed an anti-Al-Qaeda militiaman and wounded another person near Baquba, also north of Baghdad.
The attacks came a day after a wave of violence killed 56 people, 31 of them members of the Iraqi security forces.
Violence in Iraq has declined from its peak at the height of the sectarian conflict in 2006 and 2007, but the number of deaths in attacks have been on the rise since the beginning of 2013.
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