Series of attacks kill 78 in Iraq

A group of gunmen bombed three houses of policemen early Saturday in Amriyat al-Fallujah area, just south of the Fallujah city, killing two people and wounding four others, including a policeman.

In a separate incident, gunmen in a car shot dead a civilian near his house in the southern part of Fallujah, the source said.

In Baghdad, a government employee was killed when a sticky bomb detonated in his car in Doura district in the southern part of the capital, an interior ministry source said.

Iraq is witnessing its worst eruption of violence in recent years, which raises fears that the country is sliding back to the full-blown civil conflict that peaked in 2006 and 2007 when monthly death toll sometimes exceeded 3,000.

The UN Assistance Mission for Iraq has said that almost 6,000 civilians were killed and over 14,000 others injured in Iraq from January to September this year.