At least 12 killed, six wounded in Iraqi violence

Feb 28, 2008, 15:53 GMT

Baghdad - At least 12 people were killed, including a father and his son, and six wounded in separate incidents, as violence flared across Iraq, media reports said Thursday.

In one incident Thursday, militants killed an Iraqi traffic officer and his son in the city of Mosul, some 400 kilometres north of the Iraqi capital, sources told the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency.

The militants were arrested after the incident, VOI reported.

Also in Mosul, six civilians were wounded when an explosive device was detonated targeting a police patrol, VOI said. None of the police officers were harmed in the explosion.

The news agency quoted the Interior Ministry as saying a senior member of the al-Qaeda terrorist network and nine of his supporters were killed in northern Baghdad.

Separately, thousands of journalists mourned the Iraqi press union chief Shehab al-Tamimi, who died Wednesday of chest wounds, after militants attacked him in Baghdad on Saturday, VOI reported.

The head of the Iraqi Association of Journalists' Rights Ibrahim al-Sirajy told VOI that the funeral proceedings moved from al- Tamimi's office to Baghdad's streets.

He added that al-Tamimi would be buried in a grave in his birthplace in the city of Najaf, some 180 kilometres south of the Iraqi capital.

Militants shot the 74-year-old in the chest as he drove out of Baghdad's Waziriya district. His son, who was reported to be with him in the car, was not wounded.

Al-Tamimi, who served as the country's press union chief from 2004, wrote for several newspapers and was known for editorials critical of the US-led invasion of Iraq.