[An Nahar] Attacks mainly targeting members of Iraq's security forces in areas north of Storied Baghdad...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate...
killed 12 people on Wednesday, officials said.
Security forces, often plagued by shortcomings such as a lack of discipline and training, are frequently targeted by bad boys, as the country suffers its worst violence in years.
Gunmen attacked an army checkpoint in a village north of Baquba, killing three soldiers and wounding three more, while a bomb targeted a police major general's convoy near Tuz Khurmatu, killing two of his guards and wounding three.
Two more roadside kabooms went
kaboom!in Tuz Khurmatu, killing two brothers and wounding 18 people, while a soldier was killed by a magnetic "sticky bomb" on his vehicle in Tikrit.
In djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
, two civilians died in festivities between soldiers and gunnies who attacked their checkpoint, and two more soldiers were killed in another checkpoint attack in the northern city.
Violence in Iraq has reached a level not seen since 2008, when the country was just emerging from a period of brutal sectarian killings that left tens of thousands dead.
All of one city and parts of another to the west of Storied Baghdad have been held by anti-government fighters for weeks.
It is the first time they have exercised such open control in major cities since the height of the insurgency that followed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
Violence in Iraq has killed more than 520 people so far this month and over 1,500 since the beginning of the year, according to Agence La Belle France Presse figures based on security and medical sources.
It took just five days for this month's corpse count to surpass the 246 people killed in all of February last year.