BAGHDAD: Roadside bombs in Baghdad Thursday killed two civilians and wounded 12 people, including three soldiers and a militiaman, while a goldsmith was shot dead south of the capital, Iraqi officials said.
Twin bombs, which were detonated in quick succession, killed a civilian and wounded seven people, including the soldiers, in the Yarmuk district of west Baghdad, the interior ministry said.
A third bomb in the southern district of Al-Buweitha killed another civilian and wounded five people, one a member of the Sahwa (Awakening) militia set up by the US military in 2006 to fight Al-Qaeda, the ministry said.
In Al-Aziziyah, a town 70 kilometers (44 miles) south of the Iraqi capital, meanwhile, a goldsmith was shot dead by unknown gunmen, according to police.
Government statistics released late on Wednesday showed a sharp fall in the number of Iraqis killed in political violence in June compared with the same month of 2009.
Overall, 284 people — 204 civilians, 50 police and 30 soldiers — died last month, the health, defense and interior ministries in Baghdad told AFP.
The figure was one third less than the 437 people who died the previous June, when bombings in the lead-up to the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq’s towns and cities resulted in the largest death toll in 11 months.
The number of people killed in June was also less than in May, when 337 civilians, police and soldiers died in violence in what was the deadliest month for civilians — 275 — in the conflict-wracked country so far this year.
US and Iraqi officials had warned of the dangers of an upsurge of violence if negotiations on forming a new governing coalition some four months after an inconclusive general election drag on too long, giving insurgent groups an opportunity to further destabilize the country.
