Gunmen Kill Five In Baghdad Police Shootings

An Iraqi policeman mans a machine gun at a checkpoint in Baghdad.

Five Iraqi security personnel have been killed in violence in the Iraqi capital, police officials say.

In the first attack, police say gunmen armed with silencers on pistols killed two policemen who were asleep in their patrol car at a security checkpoint in the Shi'ite-dominated New Baghdad neighborhood.

The attackers set the car on fire and fled.

A half-hour later, a drive-by shooting at a checkpoint killed two more policemen in the Amil area, another Shi'ite neighborhood, in southwest Baghdad.

Some reports indicated that that their bodies were also set on fire, a phenomenon being observed in Iraq in recent weeks.

Gunmen also attacked a checkpoint manned by government-backed Sunni fighters from groups known as Awakening Councils in the mostly Shi'ite Shaab area in northeast Baghdad.

One of the fighters was killed and two were injured.

It was not clear if the shootings were coordinated or carried out by the same attackers.

Meanwhile, five people were injured when an explosive device went off in the Al-Amil neighborhood in southern Baghdad, police said.

compiled from agency reports