2 killed, 6 wounded in attacks in Baghdad

Two people were killed and six others wounded in separate gunfire and bomb attacks in Baghdad and Iraq's eastern province of Diyala on Sunday, police said. Gunmen using pistols fitted with silencers shot dead Ziyad Tariq, an official in the Iraqi Oil Ministry, and wounded his driver while moving in his car in Baghdad's southwestern district of Saidiyah, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. In a separate incident, a roadside bomb went off near a traffic police patrol near al-Nahdah intersection in eastern Baghdad, wounding three policemen and a passer-by, the source said. In Diyala province, a civilian was killed and another wounded in a shootout incident at a rural area near the provincial capital city of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, a source from the provincial operations command anonymously told Xinhua. Also in the province, Iraqi security forces carried out search operations across the province during the past 24 hours and arrested six suspects, including four wanted individuals, 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.