RAMADI - Suicide attacks targeting a police checkpoint and a Shiite Muslim procession in western and central Iraq on Sunday killed up to 13 people, including six policemen and a journalist.
The violence comes two weeks ahead of a deadline for Iraqi Prime Minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki to form a cabinet in a bid to end months of government impasse, and days before the climax of the Shiite commemoration ceremony of Ashura on Friday.
In the western city of Ramadi, a suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives near Anbar provincial government offices, killing 11 people, including six policemen, a doctor said.
The blast occurred at around 10:00 am (0700 GMT) at a police checkpoint in the centre of the city, 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of Baghdad, and left 41 people wounded, according to police Major Rahim Zabin and a doctor at Ramadi hospital.
"A suicide car bomb targeted a police checkpoint in the centre of the city, about 200 metres (yards) from the Anbar government offices," Zabin said.
A doctor at Ramadi hospital, who spoke on condition of anonymity, put the toll at 11 dead and 41 wounded.
Among the dead were six police and a cameraman for local satellite television channel al-Anbar TV, 24-year-old Omar Rassim al-Qaisi. A woman was also killed in the blast, while women and children were among the wounded.
Zabin, however, put the death toll at eight, including the six police.