Special report: Tension escalates in Iraq     

    BAGHDAD, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- Death toll from attacks in Iraq on Sunday, including a suicide bombing attack in Baghdad, rose to eight, sources with Interior Ministry and police said.

    A female suicide bomber blew herself up at a shop in central Baghdad neighborhood of Karrada on Sunday, killing up to three people and wounding eight others, an Interior Ministry source said.

    Earlier, the source put the casualties at two killed and four injured.

    The female suicide bomber entered the shop after being chased by Iraqi army soldiers on suspicion that she was a suicide bomber, the source said.

    The blast destroyed the shop and caused damages to several nearby shops and civilian cars, he said.

    In northern Iraq, a car bomb struck a police patrol in the city of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province, damaging a police vehicle and killing a policeman aboard, the police said.

    Two civilians were also killed and two others injured by the blast in the city located some 400 km north of Baghdad, they said.

    In Salahudin province, a roadside bomb went off in the morning near a civilian car in the town of Beiji, some 200 km north of Baghdad, killing the driver aboard, who was later appeared to be a member of the U.S.-backed Awakening Council group, which fight al-Qaida in Iraq network, a provincial police source told Xinhua.

    In a separate incident, unknown gunmen stormed a house in the town of Duluiyah, 90 km north of Baghdad, and shot dead a woman before they fled the scene, the source said.

    The attacks came as the Iraqi government have been emphasizing the dramatic security improvement in the war-torn country since months ago, thanks to a large influx of U.S. troops and the cooperation of Iraq's Sunnis.

    However, the U.S. military commanders have doubts over security, stressing that the al-Qaida remains a serious threat.