Attacks kill up to 18 in northern Iraq

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide attack and two car bombs killed up to 18 soldiers and civilians near Mosul in northern Iraq on Monday, police and local officials said.

Twelve members of Iraq's Kurdish Peshmerga security force, which are part of the Iraqi army, were killed and two wounded when a car bomb exploded as they were travelling in a truck in the north near the Syrian border, police said.

In Tal Afar, west of Mosul, an attacker wearing a suicide vest blew himself up at a Shi'ite funeral, killing four civilians and wounding 22, according to the local mayor. The U.S. military said the attack had killed 3 and wounded 35.

Earlier in the day, a car bomb detonated in Mosul, killing two civilians and wounding six, police said.

Most of the violence in Iraq over the past weeks has taken place in Baghdad and in the south, where security forces have battled Shi'ite militiamen.

But there is continuing unrest in the north, where Sunni Islamist al Qaeda has regrouped after being pushed out of western Anbar province and Baghdad.

(Writing by Noah Barkin, Editing by Peter Graff)