Militants seized a
village in **rth
Iraq on Friday as
attacks nationwide killed 18 people, including 10 policemen, amid a surge in bloodshed ahead of parliamentary elections. The latest unrest comes barely a week before campaigning begins for the April 30 election due to take place as
Iraq grapples with its worst protracted bloodletting since a brutal 2006-07 Sunni-Shiite sectarian war in which tens of thousands of people were killed. The unrest has been primarily driven by anger in the mi**rity Sunni Arab community, which alleges discrimination at the hands of the Shiite-led government and security forces, as well as by the civil war in neighbouring Syria. Shootings and bombings on Friday mostly took place in Sunni-majority parts of **rthern and western Iraq, killing 18 people and wounding 55, security and medical officials said.
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