6 people killed in attacks in Iraq - Nzweek

BAGHDAD, Oct. 9 (Xinhua) — Six people were killed and nine others injured in separate bomb and gunfire attacks across Iraq on Tuesday, the police said.

In Iraq's northern province of Nineveh, two members of a major Kurdish party were killed in a roadside bomb explosion near their vehicle at a village near the town of Tal Afar, some 70 km west of the provincial capital city of Mosul, a provincial police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The victims are two brothers affiliated to the office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a Kurdish party headed by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, the source said.

Tal Afar is part of disputed areas between the Kurds and both Arabs and Turkomans. The area has long been the hotbed of insurgency since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Also in Nineveh province, gunmen shot dead judge Abbas al-Abadi in front of his house in the city Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, the source said.

Meanwhile, a deputy police chief and a policeman were wounded when a roadside bomb struck their vehicle in western Mosul, the source added.

Elsewhere, five people from one family were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near their minibus in the town of Sulaiman Bek, some 160 km north of Baghdad, a local police source said.

In central Iraq, two roadside bombs went off in the early hours of the day near an Iraqi army patrol in Abu Ghraib area, some 20 km west of Baghdad, killing an officer and a soldier and wounding two soldiers, a local police source anonymously told Xinhua.

Insurgent attacks continue in the once volatile Sunni Arab area that stretches through Anbar province to Iraq's western borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

In Baghdad, an interior ministry Brigadier General escaped unharmed a drive-by shooting attack by gunmen on his car in a highway in eastern Baghdad, but his driver was killed, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Violence and sporadic high profile attacks are still common in the Iraqi cities despite the dramatic decrease of violence over the past few years.