Baghdad, May 29 (IANS): At least 18 people were killed and 44 wounded in separate attacks, including a suicide truck bombing, in central and northern Iraq Tuesday, police said.

In northern Iraq, security forces clashed with gunmen during a security operation in Mosul city, some 400 km from Baghdad, reported Xinhua citing a police source. It killed three security personnel and four gunmen. Some 15 suspected militants in the area were also detained.

In Baghdad, at least seven people were killed and 34 wounded when a car bomb went off near a minibus carrying passengers in Shiite Sadr city in eastern Baghdad, an interior ministry source said.

In another incident, a policeman and civilian were killed while nine of them injured when a suicide bomber blew up his explosive-laden tanker truck near a police checkpoint in Tarmiyah town, some 40 km from Baghdad, a police source said.

Earlier in the day, gunmen in two cars attacked a checkpoint manned by members of a government-backed paramilitary group, near Dowr town, some 150 km from Baghdad, killing two of them and wounding as many, a source said.

The attacks came a day after a wave of deadly car bomb attacks that swept Baghdad that killed at least 34 people and wounded some 155.