Attacks in Iraq, mainly targeting troops, kill 13

A series of attacks, mainly against Iraqi troops, killed 13 people in Baghdad and in the country's west today as the government pressed ahead with a draft law meant to establish a community-based national guard force in efforts to mobilise Iraq's Sunni minority in the battle against the Islamic State group.
In one of today's attacks, a suicide bomber drove his explosives-laden car into an army checkpoint near the town of al-Baghdadi, about 180 kilometers northwest of Baghdad, killing five soldiers and wounding 12, police officials said.
In Baghdad, a bomb blast in a commercial street in the western district of Ghazaliyah killed four people and wounded eight, while a bomb near a line of shops killed two people in the city's northwest, the officials said.

Earlier, gunmen in a speeding car opened fire on an army checkpoint in Baghdad's western suburb of Abu Ghraib, killing two soldiers.
Hospital officials confirmed the causalities. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media.