BAGHDAD, May 18: Violence in Iraq on Saturday killed 10 people including a police officer, his wife and two children, while gunmen kidnapped five policemen, officials said.

The attacks are the latest in a wave of violence in Iraq that has killed 270 people since the beginning of May, at a time of simmering tensions between Iraq’s Sunni minority and Shia majority.

Gunmen broke into the home of the administrator for the Rashid area, south of Baghdad, killing one of his guards, an interior ministry official said.

They then moved to the nearby house of Captain Adnan al-Obaidi, a member of a police anti-terrorism unit, and killed him, his wife and their two children, the official said.

A medical official confirmed the toll.

Gunmen killed a policeman in Mosul in north Iraq, and shot dead a local administrative official to the west of the city, police and a doctor said.

And gunmen killed the imam of a mosque near the main southern port city of Basra, police and a Sunni official said.

Near Ramadi, west of Baghdad, security forces tried to arrest Mohammed Khamis Abu Risha, who is wanted in connection with the killing of five soldiers, sparking clashes with armed tribesmen in which two of them were killed, police said.

Abu Risha is the nephew of powerful tribal sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, who is a key supporter of anti-government protesters in Anbar province and who led the uprising against Al Qaeda in the province from 2007. The nephew confirmed that two members of his tribe were killed.

Hundreds of gunmen then gathered in the area of the Anbar Operations Command headquarters near Ramadi, but later withdrew, police said. The head of the Anbar Operations Command also told reporters that gunmen kidnapped five police in Anbar province on Saturday.—AFP