Four Iraqi policemen killed in attacks

At least four police officers have been killed and four others injured in separate attacks on police checkpoints across Iraq, Press TV reported.

Unidentified attackers approached a checkpoint on Sunday in eastern Mosul's al-Qadissiya al-Thaniya neighborhood and shot two officers dead, a local police source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

The assailants escaped the scene in a vehicle and their whereabouts are unknown. Police cordoned off the area after the attack and launched an investigation.

Earlier in the day, the Iraqi police said a patrol officer on shift was killed when an improvised explosive device (IED), planted near a police patrol in the northern city of Mosul, went off.

A similar attack occurred in Mosul's western neighborhood of al-Tojjar when a bomb blast targeted an Iraqi police patrol, wounding four people, including a police officer, according to a security source.

Mosul -- which is home to a volatile ethnic mix of Sunni Arabs, Kurds, and Christians -- has been the scene of frequent shootings and bombings. The capital city of Iraq's Nineveh province is situated some 396 kilometers (250 miles) northwest of Baghdad.

Meanwhile, an Iraqi policeman succumbed to serious injuries he had sustained when a roadside bomb hit his car near the al-Shaab Stadium in central Baghdad. A medic from a Baghdad hospital said he received three police officers wounded in the explosion.