Baghdad - Four people were killed and at least 29 injured Wednesday in a car bombing near a Shiite shrine in the northern province of Salahddin, according to police sources. 

Baghdad- The absence of a clause that defines the quota of minorities in provincial councils is a threat to Iraq's national unity, the leader of the Sadrist bloc said on Tuesday.

"Minorities should be given their rights in the provincial councils to contribute to the building of the Iraqi state," Aqeel Abdel-Hussein told the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency.

Abdel-Hussein described the demands made by Iraq's minorities to have a quota in provincial councils as "legitimate."

Sadrists are a Shiite group loyal to the radical Shiite cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr.

Baghdad - A car bomb that exploded on Sunday near a market in western Baghdad killed 12 people, police said.

Baghdad - Three Iraqi civilians were killed on Sunday and another three soldiers were injured in two separate incidents in Iraq's restive Diyala province, a security source said.

Some gunmen, suspected to be affiliated to the al-Qaeda terrorist network, attacked a gathering of people in Baquba, shooting three civilians dead, a security source told the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency.

Also in Diyala, three Iraqi soldiers were injured in a blast that targeted their army patrol in Baquba's Beldouzer district.

Baquba is located 57 kilometres north-east of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

In a similar incident, another three Iraqi soldiers were injured in an explosion that struck their patrol in west Baghdad.

Baghdad - Turkish Airlines is to commence flights to Baghdad on October 26, media reports said Sunday.

Baghdad- A policeman and a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) were killed on Saturday in armed clashes north-east of Baghdad, security sources said.

The fighting broke out when Emergency Police officers raided KDP headquarters in the city of Jalawlaa, some 125 kilometres north-east of Baghdad in the tense Khanaqin district in Diyala province and arrested two of the KDP's members.