Baghdad, Jan 22 (DPA) A suicide bomber attacked a school in the Iraqi city of Baquba on Tuesday, killing a guard and injuring 20 students and teachers while a policeman was killed and two teachers were kidnapped in two separate incidents in Tikrit.
The bomber wearing an explosives belt blew himself up as students were entering a high school in central Baquba, 60 km north- east of Baghdad, witnesses said.
The attack came a day after another suicide bomber killed at least 17 people and injured 20 at a mourning ceremony in the village of Hajaj near the northern Iraqi city of Bayji in the province of Salahaddin.
The deputy governor of the province in charge of security, General Ahmed Abdallah, and a member of the a tribal police unit known as the Awakening Council, Hamad Ibrahim, escaped unharmed. Both may have been targeted by the Bayji bombing.
In Tikrit, the capital of Salahaddin, gunmen fired at two policemen in a car, killing one and injuring another, security sources said.
Both of them are the guards of the police chief of the Salahaddin province.
In a separate attack in the city, two teachers were abducted on the road between Tikrit and the village of Tozkhurmato.
No further details were immediately available.
Iraq has seen a recent lull in violence, which the US and Iraqi military attribute to a large-scale security offensive with the backing of the Awakening Council against Al Qaeda insurgents and their Sunni extremist allies, especially in Baghdad and Diyala.
Under pressure, the insurgents were escaping these areas and regrouping in northern provinces, which have seen a recent surge in violence, the US military says.