An Iraqi soldier stands guard at the site of a bomb attack, June 21, 2011. — Photo by Reuters

BAGHDAD: Bomb and gun attacks in Baghdad and northern Iraq on Wednesday killed three people and wounded 28, 12 of them policeman, officials said.

A car bomb in the capital's western al-Ghazaliyah district killed one civilian and wounded nine other people, including three policemen, a police official said.

In Baghdad's Al-Amriyah district, two improvised bombs against a police patrol wounded eight people, six of them policemen, an interior ministry official said.

Three other bombs in the eastern and central districts of the capital wounded 10 people, three of them policemen.

In the nothern city of Mosul, gunmen shot dead a policeman at a checkpoint, and in the southern part of the city mortar fire against an army base killed one civilian and wounded another.

Violence is dramatically down in Iraq since its peak in 2006 and 2007, but attacks against government officials and institutions, including security forces, have shot up in recent months, as Iraqi leaders bicker over key security posts left vacant since a March 2010 general election.

On Tuesday, two suicide car bombs ripped through a guard post killing 26 people outside the provincial governor's home in the city of Diwaniyah in central Iraq.

The surge in violence comes with only months left before US forces, in Iraq since 2003, complete a pullout at the end of this year in compliance with a 2008 agreement.