Two Iraqi army officers and a civilian were killed and seven people wounded in bomb attacks near Baghdad and Iraq's northern city of Kirkuk on Tuesday, the police said.
A bomb ripped through a billiard hall in al-Risala district in Abu Ghraib area, some 20 km west of Baghdad, killing a civilian and wounding three people, a local police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Minutes later, another bomb exploded as Iraqi army force arrived to secure the scene of the first blast, killing an officer and wounding three soldiers, the source said.
In a separate incident, gunmen shot dead an Iraqi army Colonel while he was driving his car in southern the city of Kirkuk, some 250 km north of Baghdad, a local police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Also in Kirkuk, a sticky bomb attached to a truck on a main road near Kikruk, wounding the driver, the source said.Earlier in the day, Kirkuk was the scene of a car bomb explosion near a Christian church, wounded 19 people, while Iraqi security forces foiled two more car bomb attacks, one near another church and the second near a school for Christians.
The Iraqi Christian minority members have already suffered the murder of hundreds of its members due to chaos and insecurity that engulfed Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
The oil-rich province of Kirkuk and its capital Kirkuk City are part of disputed areas between the Kurds and both Arabs and Turkomans. The province has long been the hotbed of insurgency since the invasion.