A total of 12 people were killed and a government official was wounded in separate incidents in central and northern Iraq on Sunday, the police said.

In northern Iraq, the police found five bodies in execution- style near the town of Hamam al-Alil in southern Mosul city, some 400 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, a local police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The five victims were handcuffed and blindfolded with bullet holes in different parts of their bodies, the source said.

In a separate incident, three people were killed by unidentified gunmen who opened fire on a crowd of civilians in the town of Mashahda, some 40 km north of Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source anonymously told Xinhua.

Also on Sunday, gunmen broke into a house in Karrada district in central Baghdad and shot dead four women, the source said without giving further details.

In addition, gunmen using weapons fitted with silencers seriously wounded Jumaa Yousif, a director general in the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity, while he was driving on a highway near the district of Shula in northern Baghdad, the source added.

Violence is still common in the Iraqi cities despite a dramatic decrease from its peak in 2006 and 2007, when the country was engulfed in sectarian killings.

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