Bombs in and around Baghdad killed at least nine people on Saturday, police and medical sources said, highlighting security challenges that include Islamist militancy and sectarian conflict.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Islamic State militants, who control large parts of the country's north and west, frequently set off bombs in the capital.

Five members of the security forces and one civilian were killed in Tarmiya, 25 km (15 miles) north of Baghdad, when a suicide bomber blew himself up near a security checkpoint, the sources said.

A bomb in the northwestern district of Duwanim left two more dead and nine wounded, while a blast in the Nahrawan area, south of the capital, killed one and wounded six, the sources said.

Separately, police said they found the bodies of three men in northern Baghdad who had been shot in the chest and head.

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed; Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Michael Georgy and Louise Ireland)

REUTERS