BAGHDAD, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Two people and two would-be suicide bombers were killed and six people wounded Saturday in separate attacks in the Iraqi provinces of Kirkuk and Diyala, the Iraqi military and local officials said.
In the northern province of Kirkuk, a policeman was killed and two others wounded in a roadside bomb explosion near a police vehicle at al-Sadouniyah village in southwest of the provincial capital Kirkuk city, which itself located some 250 km north of Baghdad, the media office of the Joint Operations Command (JOC) said in a statement.
Also in the province, a roadside bomb went off in al-Asriyah village, in southwest of the city of Kirkuk, leaving a civilian killed and wounding a police officer, the JOC statement said.
In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, a military intelligence force clashed with a would-be suicide bomber in the town of Mandali, some 150 km northeast of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, and shot him dead, while a police officer was wounded during the clash, Sadiq al-Husseini, head of the security committee in Diyala's provincial council, told Xinhua.
The troops killed the suicide bomber before reaching his target, which apparently was a nearby park, where many families gather to celebrate the Eid al-Fiter and the weekend holiday, he said.
Also in Diyala, the security forces conducted an operation, based on intelligence, to hunt down Islamic State (IS) militants in al-Neda area in the eastern part of the province, killing a suicide bomber and arresting three IS militants, Faisal al-Abadi, the provincial police chief, told Xinhua.
The operation also resulted in the wounding of a police officer during a clash with the militants, al-Abadi said.
In a separate incident, a farmer was wounded in a roadside bomb explosion at an orchard outside the town of Khanaqin, some 165 km northeast of Baghdad, Samir Mohammed Noor, mayor of the city, told Xinhua.
The security situation in Iraq was dramatically improved after Iraqi security forces fully defeated the extremist IS militants across the country late in 2017.
IS remnants, however, have since melted in urban areas or resorted to deserts and rugged areas as safe havens, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians.
