Two Iraqi soldiers were killed including an officer named Saddam Hussein yesterday in the first attacks on the country's security forces since the landmark US military withdrawal from towns and cities nationwide.
An interior ministry official said, ''A roadside bomb targeted an Iraqi army patrol about 8am in Abu Nawas Street in Baghdad.
''One Iraqi soldier was killed and eight people wounded, including two soldiers.''
In the oil hub of Kirkuk in northern Iraq, an army officer named Saddam Hussein was shot dead by gunmen as he was driving to work, a security official said.
''Major Saddam Hussein was killed this morning after being attacked by gunmen who pumped 24 bullets into his body,'' the official said.
The restive city and its environs have been hit by a number of bloody attacks in recent weeks.
On Tuesday, 33 people were killed in a car bombing at a popular market and last month 72 people were killed by a suicide bomber in a nearby town, in the deadliest attack so far this year.
Kirkuk is plagued by tensions among its Kurdish, Turkmen and Arab communities. Many Arabs were settled in the province by executed dictator Saddam Hussein's regime in a deliberate attempt to dilute its historic Kurdish majority.
In the run-up to the US withdrawal, June witnessed the highest death toll in the conflict-hit nation in 11 months, official figures showed on Wednesday. A total of 437 people, including 372 civilians, were killed last month, according to figures compiled by government ministries, the highest since since last July.
Iraq's 500,000 police and 250,000 soldiers are now in charge in cities, towns and villages, while most of the 133,000 US troops remaining in the country will be based outside towns and cities. AFP