Iraq attacks, bombs at Kurdish offices kill 23

A double bombing at the offices of two Kurdish political parties north of Baghdad killed at least 15 people Monday, officials said, in what was the second deadly attack on a Kurdish party office in two days. And other attacks around the country killed at least eight people the same day, as Iraq grapples with daily bombings and devastating bloodshed.

The twin attack took place in the town of Tuz Khormato, about 130 miles north of Baghdad, when a suicide bomber drove his explosive-laden truck into a checkpoint leading up to the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the nearby Kurdistan Communist Party around noon on Monday.

Shalal Abdoul, the town mayor, said another truck bomb exploded, presumably detonated by remote control, as people rushed to the scene of the first attack — a tactic that's increasingly being used to raise death tolls. A total of 15 people were killed and as many as 110 were wounded in the explosions, he said. Several houses and cars were destroyed in the attack.

It was the second double bombing at Kurdish political offices in as many days. On Sunday, a suicide bomber and a car bomb explosion targeted PUK offices in the town of Jalula, northwest of Baghdad, in the ethnically mixed Diyala province. Nineteen people died in that attack.

At least three other attacks took place on Monday. Gunmen opened fire on a security checkpoint northeast of Baghdad, killing four soldiers and two policemen. The shooting happened in the town of Kanaan, about 47 miles northeast of the capital.

In Baghdad, gunmen killed a real estate agent after spraying his office with bullets in the city's west, police said, and a government employee was killed when a sticky bomb attached to his car exploded in the eastern part of the city.

Medical officials confirmed the casualties for all attacks. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Iraq is currently struggling with its worst surge in violence since the sectarian bloodletting of 2006 and 2007. In 2013, the country's death toll rose to 8,868 people, according to United Nations figures, in what was Iraq's deadliest year since violence began to ease from a peak eight years ago. The U.N. said that May was the deadliest month so far this year, with 799 Iraqis killed in violence, including 603 civilians. With none of the problems that contribute to the heightened unrest headed for quick resolutions, the bloodshed is likely to continue unabated.

Armed groups have launched a series of major operations that have killed dozens of people in the past five days.

On Saturday, militants took hundreds of hostages at Anbar University in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, the last of whom were freed in an assault by security forces after hours of fighting.

In Baghdad, a series of blasts on Saturday night killed at least 25 people.

Heavy fighting broke out on Friday in Mosul and continued into the next day. The clashes, combined with other attacks in the surrounding Nineveh province, killed more than 100 people this weekend.

Wire services