At least 18 killed in bombings, shootings in Iraq

BAGHDAD -- Gunmen on Saturday abducted and killed four employees of an Iraqi television station who were filming a program about the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, one of a series of attacks in Iraq that left at least 18 people dead.

A bomb concealed in a kiosk used to sell ice killed four security personnel and wounded nine people at a checkpoint in Baghdad, Iraqi officials said. Northeast of the capital, eight Kurdish soldiers died in a roadside bombing that reflected how ethnic tensions remain dangerously high.

Also Saturday, gunmen stormed a house in eastern Mosul and killed a man and a woman, police and hospital officials said on condition of anonymity because of security concerns. A police officer said that the victims were Sunni Arabs and that the man was a taxi driver. Authorities did not speculate on the motive.

The Kurdish peshmerga soldiers, including a brigadier general, died on patrol in Khanaqin, 90 miles northeast of Baghdad near the border with Iran, said Col. Azad Issa, chief of the city's police force. Six died at the scene and two injured peshmerga died later in a hospital.

Diyala is critical to Baghdad's security because of its strategic importance as a conduit for the smuggling of weapons and fighters to the capital. Its proximity to Iran is also a concern, with U.S. officials accusing Tehran of supporting Shiite militias in Iraq.

Despite security gains, Diyala has a volatile mix of Sunni and Shiite militants along with desert terrain and dense palm groves to take refuge in. A large Kurdish community adds to the mix and some Iraqi government officials are concerned that forces from the Kurds' autonomous region in northern Iraq are encroaching on territory there.