Five car bombs cause relatively few casualties, marking increase in attacks.
By ASSOCIATED PRESSiraq car bomb 298.88ap(photo credit: AP)
Insurgents killed at least 10 people in attacks around Iraq on Monday, including five police officers killed at a checkpoint. Attackers exploded five car bombs around Baghdad but caused relatively few casualties.
Gunmen killed five officers at a police checkpoint 45 miles (30 miles) north of Baghdad, a morgue official in Baqouba said, and a suicide car bomber slammed into a police patrol in eastern Baghdad, killing three officers and wounding four others, Lt.-Col. Hasan Jaloob said.
That car bomb was one of five that insurgents exploded in the capital on Monday. None of the others killed anyone, though 15 people were wounded.
Bloodshed claimed at least 18 lives across Iraq on Sunday, including two US and five Iraqi soldiers killed by bombings in Baghdad. The attacks are part of an increase in violence seen in recent days after a relative lull in attacks around the December 15 parliamentary elections.
Iraq's electoral commission was expected Monday to announce the results from balloting of Iraqis living overseas.
Partial results already released from voting in Iraq showed the United Iraqi Alliance, a religious Shi'ite coalition, with a large lead.
Those results have been attacked by Sunni Arab and secular Shi'ite parties, which charge the election was tainted by fraud and other irregularities.
In other violence Monday, gunmen in Baghdad killed a civilian who was driving his two children to school, a hospital official said, and gunmen killed a professor in western Baghdad, police said.
Attackers also blew up an oil pipeline south of Sammara, 95 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad, Sunday night, police Capt. Mohammed Hasan said. The pipeline has been a frequent target of insurgents, he said.
