Gunmen on Tuesday killed seven people who supply food to the Iraqi army in an attack on a building in Baghdad, police said, according to Reuters.
Earlier, Iraqi security forces reported that two men were killed on Tuesday when gunmen ambushed two separate offices of Kurdish political groups in northern Iraq. The two incidents, in which two other people were also injured, are believed to have been carried out by the same gunmen according to Iraqi authorities.
The first attack occurred when four gunmen entered an election office in the town of Kirkuk and shot randomly at employees working there.
The men reportedly began shooting inside in the offices of Kurdish group, The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, (IECI), killing one official and injuring another, reported the AP.
Less than an hour later, a second shooting occurred nearby at the offices of another Kurdish political group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), also killing one worker and wounding a second.
Police Captain Ahmed Hamawandi reported that two gunmen fired from a car while another two entered the PKK offices shooting employees as they entered the building.
In the same town of Kirkuk, a roadside bomb wounded two policemen when it exploded near a police patrol on Tuesday morning.
Iranian coastguard accused of killing Iraqi soldier and kidnapping nine others
Iraqi authorities revealed on Monday that the Iranian coastguard killed an Iraqi soldier and kidnapped nine others over the weekend. The incident occurred on Saturday when the coastguards of the two countries met in a confrontation in the Persian Gulf.
According to Mohammed Al Wa'ili, governor of the southern Iraqi town of Basra, Iraq's coastguard had attempted to stop a ship that it believed was smuggling oil out of Iraq.
Wa'ili explained that upon recognizing the Iraqi ship's approach, the Iranian ship called for reinforcements, which then fired upon the Iraqi ship, killing the soldier.
"When they saw our boats coming closer to the ship ... the captain of this ship -- who is Iranian -- was able to call Iranian forces ... and Iranian boats then opened fire on our boats," Wa'ili said, according to Reuters.
Wa'ili also told reporters that such incidents are not isolated, and that currently two Iraqi vessels are being held at Iranian ports.
© 2006 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
