Two television journalists have been shot dead and three anti-extremist militiamen killed in a bomb blast in the latest attacks to strike Iraq.

The on-the-job killings are part of the deadliest surge in bloodshed to hit Iraq in five years, raising fears that the country is falling back into the spiral of violence that brought it to the edge of civil war in the years after the 2003 US-led invasion.

This is usual for Iraq, that they kill journalists

A reporter and a cameraman for the privately owned al-Sharqiya TV channel were shot – one in the head and the other in the torso – while working on a report in the city of Mosul, according to police. The city, about 360km northwest of Baghdad, is a former Sunni insurgent stronghold that has been one of the hardest areas of Iraq to tame.

Al-Sharqiya identified the correspondent as Mohammed Karim al-Badrani and the cameraman as Mohammed Ghanem.

Al-Sharqiya is one of several independent channels that took to the airways following the 2003 ousting of former dictator Saddam Hussein. It has drawn the ire of the current Shiite-led government with critical reports highlighting corruption, poor services and other shortcomings.