11 killed in suicide bombing in Iraq's Shiite mosque

BAGHDAD, June 22 (Xinhua) -- Eleven worshipers were killed and 30 others wounded in a suicide bomb attack north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad on Saturday, a police source said.

A suicide bomber blew himself up in a Shiite mosque on Saturday evening in the Taj area, 20 km north of Baghdad, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

As security forces sealed off the scene, the death toll could increase, the source added.

Earlier in the day, nine people were killed in separate shootings and bombings in northern and central Iraq, police said.

In northern Iraq, a suicide bomber drove his explosive-laden car into a police patrol and blew it up at a village south of the city of Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, killing a policeman and three bystanders at the scene.

Separately, three policemen were killed and an officer wounded by gunmen who opened fire on a police patrol near the city of Tuz- Khurmato, some 90 km east of the provincial capital city of Tikrit.

In a separate incident, gunmen threw a hand grenade on a crowd of people outside a grain silo in central Tikrit, some 170 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, killing two people and wounding four.

Violence and sporadic high-profile bomb attacks are still common in the Iraqi cities despite the dramatic decrease in violence since its peak in 2006 and 2007, when the country was engulfed in sectarian killings.