Ten Iraqi security officials killed in bombings and shooting

BAGHDAD — Bomb attacks killed at least eight soldiers in Iraq on Monday hours after gunmen shot dead two interior ministry intelligence officers in Baghdad, police and sources in an anti-Daesh militia said.

Iraq faces a major security challenge from the Daesh terror group, an ultra-hardline Sunni militant group that controls a third of the country and parts of neighbouring Syria.

Three roadside bombs hit the army patrol near the city of Haditha in the Sunni heartland Anbar Province, the focus of efforts to slow the advance of Daesh. At least six soldiers were killed, a source from the militia, known as Sahwa (Awakening), said.

In the village of Habariya in Anbar, a suicide bomber in a car attacked an Iraqi army regiment, killing two soldiers, police sources said.

Earlier, gunmen in speeding cars opened fire on a vehicle transporting Iraqi interior ministry officials in the capital, killing two intelligence officers, police and medics said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which also wounded one person in the Baladiyat district of eastern Baghdad.

In the Abu Dsheer district in southern Baghdad, at least two people were killed and seven wounded when a bomb exploded near a crowded market, police and medical sources said.

Efforts to contain Daesh are also focused on the town of Baiji in the north, near Iraq's biggest refinery.