Eight killed in Iraq violence

Four policemen were killed today in one of a series of fatal attacks in Iraq, officials said.

The officers along with one civilian died when an explosives-laden car detonated next to a police patrol in the town of Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad.

An Iraqi army officer was killed when a bomb attached to his car exploded in Kazimiyah, the primarily Shiite district north of Baghdad, police and hospital officials said.

They said a civilian was also killed in a similar attack when a bomb attached to his car detonated in Hurriyah, another mainly Shiite district in the north of the capital.

In a separate incident, police said gunmen opened fire on an oil truck travelling on a road just outside Beiji, killing its driver.

Police and hospital officials later confirmed the officer killed by a bomb in Kazimiyah was a brigadier general with the Iraqi army.

The man killed by another bomb in Hurriyah was Qahtan Abdul-Hussein, an official with the Baghdad provincial council, who died as he was driving through a security checkpoint, the council said in a press release.

“Terrorists have killed an official in charge of the social welfare department in Baghdad’s provincial council,” the authority said in a press release. “This cowardly terrorist attack will not undermine employees from carrying out their jobs in serving Baghdad and its people.”

According to the statement, a policeman at the checkpoint was also injured in the incident.