Attacks in Iraq killed 13 people Tuesday, most of them security personnel, officials said, the latest casualties in a country-wide spike in violence.

Attacks in Iraq killed 13 people Tuesday, most of them security personnel, officials said, the latest casualties in a country-wide spike in violence.

Iraq is mired in its worst violence since 2008, with more than 5,500 people killed this year.

In the northern province of Nineveh, two separate roadside bombs targeting army patrols killed three soldiers and wounded four others.

In Mosul, a policeman and a militant were killed in a shootout at a checkpoint, and a policeman was shot dead in a separate incident, police and a doctor said.

And a car bomb targeting a police patrol in west Mosul wounded five people, including a policeman.

A suicide bomber also detonated a vehicle rigged with explosives near a police checkpoint on the outskirts of Fallujah, killing three policemen and wounding three others, according to officials.

Just north of Baghdad, the local head of an anti-Qaeda militia and his son were killed by gunmen, officials said.

Iraq is mired in its worst violence since 2008, with more than 5,500 people killed this year.