16 killed in violent attacks across Iraq

A total of 16 people were killed and 16 others wounded in separate violent attacks across Iraq on Saturday, police and medical sources said. Gunmen intercepted a car travelling on a main road near the city of Baiji, some 200 km north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, killing four soldiers before fleeing the scene, a local police source said. In a separate incident, gunmen attacked a checkpoint manned by members of a government-backed Sahwa paramilitary group in Tarmiyah area, some 30 km north of Baghdad, leaving three group members killed and five others wounded, including three passersby, a local police source said. In Anbar province, an army force clashed with gunmen who tried attack an army base, just east of the city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad. They killed seven militants said to be affiliated to the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant, a provincial police source said. Also in the province, two civilians were killed and eight others wounded by mortar barrage in several neighborhoods in militant-seized city of Fallujah, a medical source from the city hospital said. Anbar province has been the scene of fierce clashes that flared up after Iraqi police dismantled an anti-government protest site outside Ramadi in late December last year. Iraq is currently witnessing some of its worst violence in recent years. According to the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, a total of 8,868 Iraqis, including 7,818 civilians and civilian police personnel, were killed in 2013, the highest annual death toll in years.