Attacks kill 29 people in Iraq

A wave of attacks across Iraq on Tuesday killed at least 29 people, mostly members of the security forces, while a Sunni lawmaker escaped an assassination attempt, officials said.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, but they bore the hallmarks of an Al-Qaeda breakaway group that frequently uses car bombs and suicide attacks to target public areas and members of security forces in their bid to undermine confidence in the government.

Violence has escalated in Iraq over the past year. Last year, the country saw the highest death toll since the worst of the country's sectarian bloodletting began to subside in 2007, according to United Nations figures. The U.N. said violence killed 8,868 last year in Iraq.

Police officials said the deadliest of Tuesday’s attacks took place at night when a suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden tanker truck into a security checkpoint in the northeastern suburbs of Baghdad, killing six soldiers and three civilians. Twenty-one people were wounded in the attack, the officials said.

Hours earlier, police said gunmen attacked an army post in Tarmiyah, a town just north of Baghdad, killing eight soldiers and wounding 13.

Later a roadside bomb hit the convoy of Sunni lawmaker Salim al-Jubouri in the Ghalibiya district of Baghdad. Two bodyguards were killed and seven others were wounded in the attack, police said.

Also, a car bomb blast in a commercial street in western Baghdad killed four people and wounded 12 others. Police said a bomb blast near a market in Baghdad's southern suburbs of al-Rahseed killed one person and wounded five others.

In northern city of Mosul, gunmen sprayed an army checkpoint with bullets, killing five soldiers.

Hospital medics confirmed the casualties for all attacks. All officers spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The Associated Press