At least 12 people were killed and over 40 injured in two separate suicide bomb attacks in Iraq.
Five policemen and three civilians, including a 10-year-old child, died when a suicide car bomber targeted a police base in Al-Sharqat, 100 kilometres north of Tikrit.
At least 20 people, including 13 policemen, were injured in the morning attack.
Hours later four people were killed and 23 others wounded when a bomb exploded at a market in Sinjar, a town near the Syrian border.
‘The casualties include women and children,’ said Elias Kheder, a local authority official.
On 13 August, 21 people were killed and 32 were wounded when two suicide bombers blew themselves up in a packed cafe in the town.
Two years ago, more than 400 Yazidis were killed when four suicide truck bombs targeted two northern Iraqi villages in the deadliest attack since the US-led invasion of 2003.
Yazidis number several hundred thousand and live mostly in northern Iraq.
They speak a dialect of Kurdish, and follow a pre-Islamic religion and their own cultural traditions.
Despite a reduction in violence across the country in the past year, attacks on security forces and civilians remain common nationwide, including in Baghdad.
Two devastating truck bombings in Baghdad on 19 August killed 95 people and wounded about 600.
Iraq accused neighbouring Syria of harbouring the masterminds of one of the two attacks and recalled its ambassador from Damascus.
Syria retaliated within hours by ordering back its envoy from Baghdad.
