Suicide bomber, civilian killed in Iraq's violence

A would-be suicide bomber and a civilian were killed and 10 people wounded Monday in separate bomb and gunfire attacks in Baghdad and eastern Iraq, the police said. In Baghdad, Iraqi security forces killed a would-be suicide bomber and arrested two suspects who were accompanying him in a car at a checkpoint in al-Jamia district in western part of the capital, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. The incident occurred before midday when the three tried to run away from the checkpoint, prompting the soldiers to open fire on one of the suspects who was wearing an explosive vest and blew it up, while arresting the other two, the source said. Also in the district, gunmen using silenced weapons attacked in the morning a police checkpoint and wounded two policemen, the source added. In southwestern Baghdad, two civilians were wounded when a roadside bomb went off outside a parking lot in Baiyaa district, the source said. In separate incident, a roadside bomb detonated near a bank in al-Sadr City neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, injuring two civilians, he added. In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, a civilian was killed and three others injured when a sticky bomb attached to a mini bus detonated in an intersection near the provincial capital city of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, a provincial police source asking to remain anonymous told Xinhua. Separately, Omer al-Dulaimi, a journalist, was wounded when armed men stabbed him with knives in western Baquba, the source said. Violence is still common in the Iraqi cities despite the dramatic decrease since its peak in 2006 and 2007 when the country was engulfed in sectarian killings.