Gunmen killed five people, including two soldiers, in Iraq on Thursday, officials said.

Gunmen killed five people, including two soldiers, in Iraq on Thursday, officials said.

In the northern province of Nineveh, gunmen killed four people, including two soldiers, and wounded another in two separate attacks, one of them targeting a checkpoint, an army officer and a doctor said.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, gunmen kidnapped and executed a lawyer, while a car bomb in a government car park wounded four people, police and a doctor said.

Violence has surged in Iraq this year to levels not seen since 2008. Attacks have killed more than 3,550 people since the beginning of 2013.

As Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has vowed to press on with the security force operations, security forces have in recent weeks carried out some of their biggest operations since the 2011 withdrawal of US occupation troops.