Militants killed nine people, including five soldiers, in Iraq today, officials said, the latest in a spike in violence that the government has so far failed to stem.
Security forces have in recent weeks carried out some of their biggest operations since the 2011 withdrawal of US forces, but analysts and diplomats have said authorities have not addressed the root causes of the violence.
In the deadliest single attack, a suicide bomber detonated a tanker truck rigged with explosives at an army checkpoint along a highway in the predominantly Sunni Arab western province of Anbar, killing four people, according to security and medical sources.
The attack, which struck close to provincial capital Ramadi along the route connecting the city to the Syrian border, killed three soldiers and a civilian and wounded 14 others.
Gunmen also killed today four people in the northern province of Nineveh, including two soldiers, and wounded another in two separate attacks, one of them targeting a checkpoint.
In the disputed city of Kirkuk, gunmen kidnapped and executed a lawyer, while a car bomb in a government car park wounded four people.
Violence has surged in Iraq this year to levels not seen since 2008 when the country was emerging from a brutal Sunni-Shiite sectarian conflict.
Attacks have killed at least 3,560 people since the beginning of 2013, according to figures compiled by AFP.
Analysts and diplomats link the increased bloodshed to anger among Iraq's Sunni Arab minority over their alleged ill-treatment at the hands of the Shiite-led government.
But Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has vowed to press on with the security force operations, insisting they are producing results.
