Five Iraqi soldiers were killed on Wednesday in a spate of shootings against patrols and checkpoints in Baghdad and the main northern city of Mosul, security officials said.
The violence, which also included a roadside bomb blast within an Iraqi army base that left 11 soldiers wounded, came just a day after attacks on government offices in central Iraq that killed seven people and mirrored a March raid claimed by Al-Qaeda.
In the Jamiyah neighbourhood of west Baghdad, two soldiers were shot dead by gunmen using silenced pistols against an Iraqi army patrol at around midnight, an interior ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Later Wednesday morning, another soldier was killed when insurgents opened fire on an army checkpoint in Shuala, in the capital’s north, the official added.
And in Mosul, 350 kilometres (220 miles) north of Baghdad, two soldiers were killed by gunmen who fired on an army patrol in the east of the city, according to an Iraqi army officer who did not want to be named.