Five killed in Iraq bomb and gun attacks

Five Iraqis have been killed and 14 others injured in bombings and shootings in the capital, Baghdad, and a western town today, including an attack near cafes and ice cream shops, officials said today.

A roadside bomb hit a joint Iraqi police-army patrol as it parked near a drinking water plant in the town of al-Baghdadi today, local administrator Hikmat Jubeir said. The blast killed a soldier and a policeman and wounded another soldier, he said.

Al-Baghdadi town is in Anbar province, which was once a stronghold of the Sunni insurgency.

Also today, gunmen in a speeding car shot and killed a Shiite cleric as he left an Electricity Ministry office in the New Baghdad district of the capital, a police officer said.

The motive for the shooting was not immediately known.

Hours earlier, at around midnight, a bomb exploded in Baghdad’s western Jamiaa neighbourhood near cafes and ice cream shops, killing two civilians and wounding 13 others, a police officer said.

Iraq has seen a general drop in violence since 2008 after a peak of violence, but sporadic attacks still occur around the country.

With the ebb in violence, Iraqis have started going out in the evenings more, especially during the current holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from dawn to sunset.