At least 15 people, including a candidate for the upcoming parliamentary election, were killed and more than 30 others wounded in two violent attacks in Iraq Wednesday, police said.
Twelve Iraqis were killed and more than 30 others were injured when a car bomb exploded in a popular market in Baabouch village near Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, Xinhua quoted a police source as saying.
Among the dead was Sheikh Salim Yusuf Kiki, a tribal leader and a candidate for the Kurdistan Alliance in the upcoming parliamentary elections. He was on a visit to the village in Nineveh province.
More than 15 shops were destroyed and over 20 cars were burned in the blast.
Ahmed Harbi, a member of the Diyala provincial council and two of his bodyguards were killed when they were ambushed by unidentified gunmen near Sensl village, some 45 km northeast of Baquba, the provincial capital of Diyala.
The latest of violence came just one week before Iraq's April 30 parliamentary election, the first in the country since the withdrawal of US troops in late 2011.