8 killed in Iraq attacks

BAGHDAD—A spate of bomb attacks appearing to target security forces in central and west Iraq on Wednesday killed at least eight people, including two policemen and two soldiers, officials said.

In the deadliest attack, a car bomb exploded near a restaurant frequented by security force members in the town of Medhatiyah, just east of the central city of Hilla, according to a police lieutenant who declined to be identified.

Four people were killed and 25 wounded in the 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) attack, the officer said.

In Baghdad, insurgents opened fire on a police checkpoint in the Qahira neighborhood, in the capital’s north, killing two policemen and wounding another, an interior ministry official said.

And a magnetic “sticky bomb” attached to a vehicle inside an Iraqi air force base in the town of Habbaniyah, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Baghdad, killed two people and wounded 10 others, according to officials in the provincial security command center and at the morgue in Anbar’s capital Ramadi.

Violence is down across Iraq from its peak in 2006 and 2007, but attacks remain common. A total of 239 people were killed in violence in the country in August, according to official figures.

A total of 1,860 Iraqis have been killed since the beginning of the year, according to an AFP tally based on government figures.