Spate of Baghdad violence leaves 11 dead: Police source

By Ibrahim Saleh

BAGHDAD

At least 11 people were killed, including security personnel, and another 26 injured in separate attacks across capital Baghdad over the past 24 hours, an Iraqi police source said Monday.

“Police patrols found the body of theater artist Karrar on Sunday night only hours after he was kidnapped near Palestine Street [in eastern Baghdad],” Police Lieutenant Saad Kazem told Anadolu Agency.

Along with multiple stab wounds, the artist’s body also appeared to bear signs of torture, Kazem said.

According to the same police officer, policemen also found another two bodies within the past 24 hours, one in a public square in Baghdad’s district and another in the capital’s Husseiniya district.

Kazem went on to note that an Iraqi soldier had been killed -- and a second injured -- in an attack carried out by unidentified gunmen in Baghdad’s western Arab Nuri area.

He added that a police captain had also been killed in a similar attack in Baghdad’s southeastern Jorf al-Nadaf neighborhood.

A third soldier lost his life in an attack in the city’s southern Al-Mechanic district, Kazem said, while a civilian resident was killed by unidentified gunmen in Baghdad’s northern Bab al-Sham area.

According to Kazem, a spate of bombings across Baghdad over the past day had left another four people dead and at least 25 injured.

One pro-government tribal volunteer was killed and another two injured when a police vehicle struck a roadside bomb in the Sadr district of Baghdad’s southern Yusufiya district, he said.

And three civilians were killed -- and 23 injured -- by separate bombings that occurred in Baghdad’s Yusufiya, Sheikh Omar, Zafaraniya, Obeidi, Sabra, Bab al-Sham, Zaidan and Umm al-Jadayel districts, the police officer said.

While no groups have claimed responsibility for the spate of attacks, the Iraqi authorities typically blame such seemingly random acts of violence on the Daesh terrorist group, which overran much of the country in mid-2014 and is now the target of an ongoing military operation.