Sepcial Report: Tension accelerates in Iraq

    BAGHDAD, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Four people were killed and 26 others wounded in two separate mortar attacks on markets in Iraq on Monday, a police source said.

    The first attack took place when several mortar rounds landed at a busy market at Mahmoudiyah town, some 30 km south of Baghdad, killing four civilians and wounding 14 others, the source said.

    In another incident, 12 people were injured and several shops and nearby buildings damaged, when mortar rounds landed at a popular market in Baghdad's northern neighborhood of al-Shaab, the source added.

    Earlier, four people, including two soldiers, were killed, when a suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden car into barricade of an Iraqi army checkpoint near Kendi hospital in eastern Baghdad.

    In addition, a car bomb blast missed a police patrol and hit a busy market in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, killing at least five civilians and wounding more than 20.

    Violence has mounted despite the formation of a new unity government in the war-torn country in late May. Enditem