At least 30 people were killed and 25 others wounded in the latest wave of violent attacks across Iraq, police said Thursday.
An Iraqi police patrol Thursday found the bodies of 14 people who had been shot dead in an orchard in Mshahada, a Sunni Arab village near Tarmiyah, some 30 km north of Baghdad, a police source told Xinhua.
These people were kidnapped Wednesday night by some gunmen who were wearing Iraqi army uniforms and carried out a raid and search operation in the area, the source said.
Nine of them were from the same family, he added.
Three members of the Sahwa militia were killed and two others seriously injured when a suicide bomber attacked their checkpoint in the Joabh area near Ramadi, 100 km west of Baghdad.
The Sahwa militia, also known as the Awakening Council or the 'Sons of Iraq', consists of armed groups, including some former anti-US Sunni insurgent groups, who turned their rifles against the Al Qaeda network after the hardline group exercised indiscriminate killings against both Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities.
Unidentified gunmen attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint Thursday evening in the area of Zaidan, 25 km west of Baghdad, killing two soldiers and wounding another, a police source said.
A sources said earlier Thursday that 11 people were killed and 22 others wounded in separate violent attacks in the country.
In the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, an army officer was killed and a passerby wounded when a sticky bomb attached to his car went off in Iskan district in the western part of Baghdad, a police source told Xinhua.
In a separate incident, a government employee was killed when a sticky bomb exploded in his car while he was driving on Maghrib street in Baghdad's northern district of Adhamiyah, the source said.
Two people were killed and nine wounded in a roadside bomb explosion in Baghdad's western district of Ghazaliyah.
Near Baghdad, two people were killed and eight wounded when a roadside bomb ripped through the town of Madain, some 30 km south of the capital.
A soldier was killed and another wounded when gunmen attacked their checkpoint in Abu Ghraib area, some 25 km west of Baghdad, the source added.
In Iraq's northern central province of Salahudin, gunmen shot dead a member of the government-backed Sahwa paramilitary group in a village near the provincial capital city of Tikrit, some 170 km north of Baghdad.
Also in the province, police found the body of a soldier who was kidnapped earlier by gunmen in Shirqat city, some 110 km north of Tikrit, the source said, adding that the body was dumped on a roadside in the city with bullet holes in his head and chest.
In the eastern province of Diyala, a gunman was killed when he tried to attack an army outpost at a village near the provincial capital city of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad.
A civilian was killed and another wounded when gunmen opened fire on their vehicle near the city of Maqdadiyah, some 100 km northeast of Baghdad, a police source said.
A policeman and a civilian were wounded when a sticky bomb attached to their car detonated in the town of Jalawlaa, some 70 km northeast of Baquba, the source added.
Iraq is witnessing its worst violence in recent years. According to the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, a total of 8,868 Iraqis, including 7,818 civilians and civilian police personnel, were killed in 2013, which is the highest annual death toll for years.
