Iraq general among 3 dead in attacks

Gunmen shot dead an Iraqi border forces brigadier general on Monday, among three people killed and six wounded in nationwide violence, security and medical officials said. Brigadier General Abdul Hussein Mohsen was gunned down by several armed men while he was in the town of Taji, just north of Baghdad, an interior ministry official said. A medic at Kadhimiyah hospital in the north of the capital confirmed the facility received Mohsen's body, adding that the general died of multiple gunshot wounds. A bomb blast targeting an army patrol in the town of Haditha, 210 kilometres (130 miles) west of Baghdad, meanwhile, killed a civilian and wounded three soldiers, according to an army officer and a doctor at Haditha hospital. And in the main northern city of Mosul, a roadside bomb apparently aiming for a police patrol killed one person and wounded another, according to police 2nd Lieutenant Salam Hamed and doctor Faiz Tareq from the city's main hospital. Also in Mosul, which lies 350 kilometres (220 miles) north of the capital, two young boys were wounded by another bomb blast, the officials said. The latest fatalities took to 259 the number of people killed in nationwide attacks so far in August, according to an AFP tally based on reports from security and medical officials. Violence has significantly decreased in Iraq compared to the brutal years of 2006 and 2007, but attacks are still common across the country.