A wave of suicide bomb attacks on security personnel and government buildings killed at least 12 people across Iraq yesterday, police said.

In what appeared to be coordinated strikes, bombers, some driving cars packed with explosives, attacked sites in the town of Rawa, 260 kilometres northwest of Baghdad.

Another bomber hit a busy street in the northern city of Samarra.

No one claimed responsibility for the blasts, though Sunni Muslim insurgents, including al-Qaeda, have regularly targeted security personnel and others working for the Shi’ite-led government.

One attacker drove a car up to a checkpoint on the main road into Rawa and blew himself up, officers said. Another targeted a police station and a third the house of the mayor, seriously wounding him and killing at least three others.

Two other suicide bombers wearing police uniforms set off their explosive vests inside Rawa’s local council building, killing three people including the organisation’s deputy head, police said.

A series of attacks on Rawa last month was claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which was formed earlier this year in a merger between al-Qaeda’s Iraqi and Syrian affiliates.