Bombs, shootings kill at least 47 across Iraq, say police.

Bombs, shootings kill at least 47 across Iraq, say police.

Another police officer said a bomb exploded near
a car ferrying a judge in the northern town of Balad,
killing three nurses walking nearby. The judge, his
brother and the driver were wounded. — Photo by AP

BAGHDAD | REUTERS | 26 Aug 2013 ::  Car bombs, roadside bombs and shootings killed at least 47 people in Iraq on Sunday, police and medical sources said, as tensions intensify between Sunni and Shia Muslims across the Middle East.

Sunni Muslim insurgents and the al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq have significantly increased their attacks this year.

More than 1,000 Iraqis were killed in July, the highest monthly death toll since 2008, according to the United Nations.

More than two years of civil war in neighbouring Syria have aggravated deep-rooted sectarian divisions and shaken Iraq's fragile coalition of Shia, Kurdish and Sunni factions.

The renewed violence, eighteen months after the last US troops withdrew from Iraq, has sparked fears of a return to the scale sectarian slaughter in 2006 and 2007.

Iraqis have suffered extreme violence for years, but since the start of 2013 the intensity of attacks on civilians has dramatically increased.

Bomb attacks have increasingly targeted cafes and other places where families gather, as well as the usual targets of military facilities and checkpoints.

The biggest of Sunday's attacks took place in central Baquba, 65 km northeast of Baghdad when a car bomb blew up near a housing complex, killing at least 11 people and wounding 34, police said.(Courtesy:Dawn)

3 police killed in Sinai drive-by shooting.

Terrorists continue to carry out attacks despite major military crackdown

The charred remains of an armored vehicle are loaded onto
 a truck after a rocket-propelled grenade attack on a police
 checkpoint that killed a police colonel in el-Arish, Egypt, Friday,
July 12, 2013 (photo credit: AP/Muhammed Sabry)

Time of Israel  | 18 Jul 2013 :: Terrorists shot and killed three Egyptian police officers in a drive-by attack in the city of el-Arish Wednesday evening.

Medical sources told al-Arabiya that one policeman died instantly after being shot in the neck while standing outside a police station in north Sinai’s largest city. The assailants then fled the scene in their vehicle.

Earlier, gunmen attacked two security checkpoints outside the city, including one at the airport, according to the MENA state news agency. No casualties were reported in those attacks.

Wednesday’s attacks came amid the Egyptian military’s heaviest crackdown to date against terrorist groups in the restive peninsula.

On Monday, Israel approved Cairo’s request to allow two more infantry battalions into the Sinai region.

The new forces will join a large number of Egyptian troops already operating in the area in an agreed departure from the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace agreement.

The additional forces mean that Egypt now has 11 infantry battalions deployed in the Sinai, as well as a tank battalion and assault helicopters — all dispatched with Israel’s formal approval, as required by the treaty.

Since the military deposed the Islamist president Mohammed Morsi on July 3, militant groups have lashed out with increased violence. The peninsula has seen several recent attacks, assassination attempts and kidnappings. In the past two weeks, at least nine Egyptian security officers have been killed in battles with gunmen.

On Tuesday, gunmen attacked an Egyptian army camp near Rafah, on the border with the Gaza Strip, wounding six soldiers and a civilian.

Officials say unidentified militants attacked the barracks with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns.

A stray bullet wounded a 50-year-old woman in the Egyptian city of Rafah.

Two military officers and four soldiers were also wounded in the nighttime attack. Officials say they were treated at the outpost out of fears that an ambulance transporting them would be targeted. Officials spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak to media.