Bomb attacks kill 23 people in Iraq

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Suicide bombings and car bombs, including an attack on federal police headquarters, killed 23 people in Iraq on Wednesday, police, military and medical sources said.

A car bomb, followed shortly afterwards by a suicide bombing, killed 11 people at the police building in al-Nisour Square in Baghdad, including six policemen. Twenty-one people were wounded.

In Diyala province north of Baghdad, Army Colonel Faisal al-Zuhairi was killed when a suicide bomber in a Humvee attacked his convoy. Five of his men also died.

A suicide bomber in a car packed with explosives attacked an army checkpoint in the town of Yusifiya, 15 km (9 miles) south of Baghdad. Six people were killed and 20 wounded, police said.

Islamic State militants swept through northern Iraq in June and took control of large areas of the Sunni Muslim west of the country, seizing Humvees, tanks and armored vehicles from defeated Iraqi government troops.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Tuesday he intended to remove concrete security barriers from Baghdad and give a greater role to police in protecting the capital, despite little respite from the car bombs the barriers were designed to thwart.

Abadi praised what he called "excellent" security operations in Baghdad, and his comments suggested he aimed to reduce the army's security role in the city of 7 million people.