A policeman and a Sunni Arab imam were shot dead in separate incidents in Baghdad on Thursday ,an Interior Ministry source said.
Unidentified armed men in a car gunned down Sheikh Ahmed Sa' doun Saleh, Imam of a Sunni Muslim mosque in Baghdad's western district of Adel, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Saleh was assassinated in front of his mosque as he was leaving after the noon prayer, the source said, adding that the gunmen fled the scene.
In a separate incident, a policeman was shot dead and another wounded by a sniper shot in Baghdad's central district of Karradah, the source added.
The policemen were manning a checkpoint at the commercial area when the sniper attacked them, he said.
Despite relative decline of violence, sporadic attacks are still common in Iraq as part of recent deterioration in security which shaped a setback to the efforts of the Iraqi government to restore normalcy in the country before the March parliamentary elections.