Five Iraqis killed in bombings, shootings

Baghdad: Bombings and shootings, including an attack near cafés and ice cream shops, killed five Iraqis and wounded 14 in the capital and a western town, officials said Saturday.

A roadside bomb Saturday hit a joint Iraqi police-army patrol as it parked by a drinking water plant in the town of Al Baghdadi, local administrator Hikmat Jubeir said. The blast, at around 9am, killed a soldier and a policeman and wounded another soldier, he said. Al Baghdadi town is in Anbar province, which was once a stronghold of the Sunni insurgency.

Also Saturday, gunmen in a speeding car shot and killed a Shiite cleric as he left an Electricity Ministry office in the New Baghdad district of the capital, a police officer said. The motive in the shooting was not immediately known, the officer said.

A doctor at a nearby hospital confirmed the death.