UPDATED: Baghdad blasts kill policeman, wound 11
An Iraqi officer passing by an explosion site in Baghdad.
One policeman was killed and two others were injured when an IED blast hit western Baghdad, according to a security source.
“An IED exploded at a police patrol passing at Hamid Shaaban neighborhood, Abu Gharib, west of Baghdad,” the source was quoted by Rudaw agency as saying.
Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack.
Meanwhile in al-Shaab region, north of Baghdad, six IEDs exploded at different areas, wounding nine people, according to a statement by the Interior Ministry’s Baghdad Operations.
Violence surged across Iraq as Islamic State extremists captured several Iraqi cities in 2014, and continues even as the group is sustaining defeats during a current wide-scale campaign by Iraqi forces and tribal militias.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) said early December that violence during November claimed the lives of 926 civilians and wounded 930 people.
Observers believe ISIS have begun to target several areas across Iraq to divert security focus on Mosul, where the group fights to defend its last bastion in Iraq under the brunt of continuous advancements by Iraqi government and popular troops.