Three women killed in northern Iraq raid as an education ministry official killed in roadside bomb

Gunmen stormed a house in northern Iraq and killed a woman and her two nieces in an early morning attack, while a roadside bomb killed an education ministry official in Baghdad on Tuesday.

In the first accident, gunmen entered a house in the east of Kirkuk city and shot dead Moha Jihad Jumaa, a schoolteacher, and her nieces, Walaa Waheed Hassan and Manal Mohan. "The armed men used silencer pistols," said police Brigadier General Zain al-Abidine. "We have started an investigation into this attack. It carries the stamp of terrorism."

Meanwhile, in the south Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, a senior education ministry official identified as Abdelamir Hussein was killed by a magnetic "sticky bomb" affixed to his car, an interior ministry official said. Two other passengers in the car, also officials in the education ministry, were wounded in the blast.

Also in Baghdad, a roadside bomb exploded at a checkpoint near the former headquarters of the finance ministry, wounding four Iraqi soldiers and two civilians.

Tuesday's violence came a day after two car bombs killed five people at an entrance to the heavily-fortified Green Zone, which is to play host to an Arab League summit in less than a month.