BAGHDAD, June 28 (UPI) -- Violence persisted in Iraq as the month of June, already deadly, approached its end with an undetermined number of people killed Thursday, officials said.
The number of people killed Thursday was unclear. Xinhua, the Chinese government news agency, said 13 people were killed in bombings and shootings.
Two police officers were killed in Ramudi in Anbar province, Xinhua said. The attacker was a suicide bomber using a car packed with explosives.
At least five people died in the Baghdad area.
In one incident, police said bombs in three parked cars exploded outside of residential buildings in the Taji area, about 20 miles north of the Iraqi capital, killing two and wounding 15, CNN reported.
Another car bomb went off near an outdoor market in a western Baghdad neighborhood, killing one person and injuring seven others, police said.
In Samarra, a city about 62 miles north of Baghdad, a gunman shot and killed two members of a local Awakening Council, CNN said. The Awakening Councils, also known as the Sons of Iraq, are mainly Sunni Arab fighters who turned against Iraq's al-Qaida insurgents in 2006.
May and June have been exceptionally violent in Iraq, although the number of deaths remain significantly lower than at the peak of the insurgency. On June 13, 93 Shiite pilgrims headed for Baghdad died in a bomb attack, the biggest daily death toll since U.S. troops pulled out in December.
