In a two-hour stint of the early evening, a traffic police colonel, two other police, an army captain and an engineer were gunned down in five separate attacks in Baghdad, an interior ministry source said on condition of anonymity.

Gunmen also severely wounded a colonel with the interior ministry, he said, adding that security was stepped up in central Baghdad after the attacks.

Two people, including a soldier, were killed and three others wounded by a car bomb targeting an army patrol in Al-Qayyara, 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the northern city of Mosul, First Lieutenant Khattab Mohammed said.

One policeman was killed and four others were wounded when gunmen attacked a checkpoint in Al-Filahat area, 10 kilometres (six miles) from the western city of Fallujah, police Captain Omar al-Filahi said.

In Balad, 70 kilometres (45 miles) north of Baghdad, assailants blew up the home of local prosecutor Hardan Khalifa, killing a woman and wounding eight other people, including three women and a child, a hospital official said.

And in Baquba, northeast of the capital, two improvised explosive devices wounded three people, including Mal Allah Abbas Ahmed, who heads the Sunni religious endowment for Diyala province, police and medical officials said.

The Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), Al-Qaeda's front group in Iraq, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for two bombings in Mosul and Ramadi last week that killed eight policemen, in a statement monitored by SITE Intelligence Group.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who was approved by parliament for a second term along with a national unity cabinet on December 21 after more than nine months of political deadlock, has cited security as a top priority.

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