7 people killed in Iraq's violence

Seven Iraqis were killed and 12 others injured in attacks in and near Baghdad on Monday, an Interior Ministry source said.

Gunmen stormed early in the morning the house of Naiem al- Zubaie, a cleric of a Sunni mosque, in the Zaidan suburb west of Baghdad and opened fire, killing him and two of his under-10-year- old boys, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The attackers also wounded Zubaie's wife and his 25-year-old son before they fled the scene, the source said.

In a separate incident, four insurgents were killed while they were trying to booby-trap the house of an anti-Qaida paramilitary group fighter, known as Awakening Council group, in a village near the rural area of Abu Ghraib, just west of Baghdad, the source added.

The blast caused no casualty among the fighter's family members, he said.

Initial police reports said that the attack was an attempt by Qaida militant to take revenge against the government-backed Awakening Council groups, he added.

In eastern Baghdad, a bomb went off in the morning in the Kasra Wa Attash neighborhood, wounding eight people, the source said.

Meanwhile, two people were wounded when a roadside bomb went off near a police patrol in Doura district in southern Baghdad, the source added.

Waves of high-profile attacks and sporadic attacks are still common in the Iraqi cities three months after the country held its landmark parliamentary election which is widely expected to shape the political landscape of the war-torn country.

Source: Xinhua