Kirkuk deputy police chief Maj Gen Torhan Abdul-Rahman Youssef said three car bombs exploded today simultaneously in separate residential neighborhoods. Youssef said the blasts killed four people and wounded 14.
The northern city of Kirkuk is 290 kilometers from the capital, Baghdad.
In Baghdad, police and medical officials said gunmen shot dead a former army officer and his wife in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad's northeastern suburbs. Police officers also found three bodies around the capital, their hands and feet tied, all killed by what appeared to be close-range gunshots to the head, officials said.
Mishahda is 30 kilometers north of Baghdad.
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Later on, police said gunmen attacked a security checkpoint in Baghdad's western suburbs of Abu Ghraib, killing four soldiers.
Those officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.
Meanwhile, clashes between security forces and al-Qaida-linked militants continued near a city west of Baghdad, according to local and military officials in the contested province of Anbar.
The officials said that the clashes erupted in the Niamiyah area near Fallujah. Militants also captured five Iraqi soldiers during clashes today, said Dhari al-Arsan, Anbar's deputy governor.
Footage posted online appeared to show five men dressed in Iraqi army uniforms, sitting in the back of a pickup as shouting onlookers and gunmen called them "infidels" and "agents."
The video could not be absolutely verified but appeared consistent with reporting by The Associated Press on the incident.