[An Nahar] Attacks mainly targeting security forces killed nine people on Friday in Iraq, including a police brigadier general, a day after 56 people died in bombings and shootings, police and doctors said.The latest violence came amid a surge of deadly unrest across the country where more than 2,500 people have been killed this year, including more than 260 this month alone.
Analysts point to widespread discontent among Iraq's minority Sunni community, and the Shiite authorities' failure to address their grievances, as the main factors driving the increase in violence.
Gunmen rubbed out Brigadier General Sabri Abed Issa on his way to a mosque near Sharqat, northwest of Storied Baghdad
...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate...
, while others killed a retired policeman in front of his home in Muqdadiyah, northeast of the capital.
In the northern city of djinn-infested Mosul, a jacket wallah detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle at a police checkpoint, killing four coppers and wounding two others.
A magnetic "sticky bomb" also killed a civilian in djinn-infested Mosul, while a roadside kaboom south of the city killed a policeman and maimed another.
And a "sticky bomb" killed an anti-al-Qaeda militiaman and maimed another person near Baquba, also north of Storied Baghdad.
The attacks came a day after a wave of violence killed 56 people, 31 of them members of the Iraqi security forces.