25 killed in attacks in Iraq

BAGHDAD - At least 25 people, including eight military officers, were killed and 26 wounded in separate violent attacks in Iraq on Saturday, police said.

The deadliest attack occurred in Iraq's western province of Anbar when insurgents blew up a booby-trapped shelter as Iraqi security forces entered the camp suspected of training al-Qaida militants in the desert area of Wadi Houran. Up to 15 soldiers were killed and 14 others were wounded in the attack, a provincial police source told Xinhua.

In northern Iraq, Two senior police officers and a policeman were killed in a car bomb explosion near their vehicle in the city of Shirqat, a local police source told Xinhua.

An army officer and a soldier were killed when a roadside bomb struck an army patrol in the southwestern part of the city of Kirkuk, a local police source said.

Meanwhile, Brigadier General Abdul-Aziz al-Maghour, head of security coordination office of Nineveh province, and one of his sons were critically wounded when gunmen opened fire on his house in the town of Qaiyara, some 350 km north of Baghdad, a provincial police source said.

In a separate incident, two policemen were killed when gunmen attacked their checkpoint the city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, a local police source told Xinhua.

Elsewhere, a soldier was killed and two were wounded in a fierce clash between soldiers and gunmen in the town of Tarmiyah, some 40 km north of Baghdad, a local police source said.

Also in the day, two people were killed and seven wounded when two mortar rounds landed near Shiite pilgrims on a main road near the town of Latifiyah, some 25 km south of Baghdad, a police source told Xinhua.

The pilgrims were heading to the holy Shiite city of Karbala, some 110 km south of Baghdad, to observe the Arbaeen religious ritual ahead of its climax day next Tuesday.

Arbaeen is the 40th day after the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, Prophet Muhammad's grandson and the third holy figure for the Shiite Muslim sect killed in the battle of Karbala in 680 A.D.

Iraq is witnessing its worst violence in recent years. According to the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, 8,109 Iraqis, including 952 members of Iraqi security forces, were killed in the country from January to November this year.