Baquba: Insurgents killed eight people on Thursday in the restive Iraqi city of Baquba where a surge in sectarian violence has left hundreds of people dead over the past few months, police said.
Gunmen stormed a shop in western Baquba's Yarmuk neighbourhood and shot dead two brothers who owned the shop, police said.
A civilian driving in his car was killed and his three-year-old son wounded when gunmen sprayed bullets on them in the town of Muqdadiyah, 45 kilometres northeast of Baquba.
In Khan Bani Sa'ad village, south of Baquba, gunmen ambushed two brothers who were driving in a car and killed them on the spot.
Meanwhile, rockets slammed into homes in Baghdad just before nightfall on Thursday, killing up to 46 people and wounding well over 100, police sources said, adding that the toll could rise as bodies were pulled from the rubble.
The barrage of seven rockets, spread out across various neighbourhoods in the mainly Shiite east of the capital, struck as families gathered at evening for the start of the weekend.
The total number of casualties will not be known until daylight.
