3 people killed in Iraq's violence

BAGHDAD - Three people were killed and eight others wounded in separate attacks in northern and eastern Iraq on Tuesday, the police said.

Gunmen opened fire on an electoral center in Iraq's northern city of Mosul, some 400 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, killing an Iraqi army soldier and wounding another, a local police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

In a separate incident, the police found the body of a woman, who was strangled to death, in northeastern Mosul, the source said.

In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, a sticky bomb attached to a minibus carrying passengers detonated in the provincial capital city of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, killing a civilian and wounding four others, a provincial police source anonymously told Xinhua.

In addition, two policemen and a civilian were wounded in two bomb attacks across the province, the source said.

Violence in Iraq has decreased from its climax in 2006 and 2007, when sectarian conflicts pushed the country to the brink of a civil war, but tensions and shootings and bombings are still common across the country.