Nine killed in latest Iraq bloodshed
BAGHDAD: A series of attacks in Baghdad nine people on Monday, as Iraq grapples with a months-long surge in nationwide violence.
Coupled with a protracted stand-off between security forces and anti-government fighters in the western province of Anbar, unrest this month has left more than 850 people dead, fuelling fears Iraq is slipping back into the brutal conflict that plagued it in 2006-2007.
Attacks on Monday struck in Baghdad, and in and around the restive Baquba, Mosul and Samarra, security and medical officials said.
In the most brutal incident, gunmen killed two policemen and an anti-Qaeda Sahwa militiaman in an attack on their joint checkpoint near Samarra and then decapitated them.
Elsewhere, gunmen killed three people, including a police officer, in separate shootings in Baghdad, while two policemen were gunned down in the main northern city of Mosul.
Mortar fire in Muqdadiyah, near Baquba in Diyala province, killed one person and wounded three others.
The latest bloodshed took the overall death toll for the month above 870 -- more than three times the toll for January 2013. (AFP)
