10 killed in insurgent attacks in Iraq

Ten people were killed and nine other wounded in separate violent attacks in Iraq on Sunday, police said. In early hours of the day, unknown gunmen broke into the house of a man in the town of Latifiyah, some 30 km south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, and stabbed him, his wife and four of his sons to death with knives, an Interior Ministry source said. Latifiyah is part of the restive area, dubbed "Triangle of Death", which is a hotbed of the insurgency against the U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces. The town is one of a cluster of Sunni towns scattered north of Babil's provincial capital city Hilla, about 100 km south of Baghdad. In Anbar province, a leader of a local government-backed Sahwa paramilitary group was killed in a roadside bomb explosion near his car in the southern part of the provincial capital city Ramadi, some 110 km west of Baghdad, a provincial police source said. Separately, gunmen clashed with members of a government-backed Sahwa paramilitary group in the town of Khaldiyah, some 80 km west of Baghdad, killing a Sahwa member and wounding three others, the source said. The Sahwa militia, also known as the Awakening Council or the Sons of Iraq, consists of armed groups and some powerful anti-U.S. Sunni insurgent groups who turned their rifles against the al- Qaida network after the latter exercised indiscriminate killings against both Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities. Meanwhile, a soldier was killed and two others wounded when a roadside bomb struck their patrol in Albu-Bali area in east of Ramadi, the source added. Elsewhere, a suicide bomber tried to drive his booby-trapped tanker into a police commando headquarters in the city of Tikrit, some 170 km north of Baghdad, but the guards opened fire on his tanker and blew it up before reaching target, leaving at least one policeman wounded, a local police source said. In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, a civilian was killed and two others wounded when a sticky bomb attached to a minibus was detonated near the city of Khalis, near the provincial capital city Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, a provincial police source said. In a separate incident, gunmen using silenced weapons wounded a policeman outside Baquba, the source said. Also in the province, a security force captured a leading figure in the Shiite militia of Asa'b Ahl al-Haq in the city of Maqdadiyah, some 40 km northeast of Baquba, the source said. The captive, also named Abu Sajjad, is wanted for involving in sectarian killings against the Sunni community in the predominantly Sunni city of Maqdadiyah, the source added. Iraq is witnessing its worst violence in recent years. According to the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, a total of 8,868 Iraqis, including 7,818 civilians and civilian police personnel, were killed in 2013, the highest annual death toll in years.