Seven dead in Baghdad area attacks

BAGHDAD: Attacks in central Iraq left five security members dead and an alleged Al-Qaeda fighter killed two prison guards Thursday, amid a recent spike in unrest that has broken a relative calm in Baghdad. The violence comes just days after a suicide car bomb outside Iraq's Shiite religious foundation's headquarters in Baghdad killed 25 people, and during a protracted political crisis that has raised sectarian tensions. In the deadliest attack, at least two anti-Qaeda militiamen were killed and one was wounded when gunmen opened fire on their checkpoint in the town of Tarmiyah, 45 kilometres (30 miles) north of the capital, an interior ministry official and a medical source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. A roadside bomb, meanwhile, detonated near an army patrol in the town of Mashaada, 30 kilometres (18 miles) north of Baghdad, killing one soldier and wounding three others, according to an army officer and a medic. And in Abu Ghraib, just west of the capital, a roadside bomb blew up near an army checkpoint, killing one soldier and wounding three others, the interior ministry and medical officials said. In Baghdad, police Lieutenant Colonel Nabil Hadi was shot dead by gunmen in the Jihad neighbourhood, in the capital's west, the interior ministry official said. Thursday's attacks were the latest in a recent spike in violence. Along with Monday's suicide car bombing at the Shiite religious foundation in Baghdad, a series of blasts in the capital killed 17 people on May 31