Suicide bomber kills three in northern Iraq: police

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - At least three people were killed and 15 wounded on Thursday when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a barber's shop popular with police in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, police and hospital sources said.

The attack is the latest and a wave of bombings across the country in recent weeks which have raised fears that Iraq could slip back into sectarian bloodletting of the kind that peaked in 2006-07.

Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, is the capital of the mainly Sunni Muslim Neneva province where al Qaeda has been particularly active.

Tensions have run high as Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish political factions vie for power.

In a separate attack, in the northern city of Samarra, a bomb in a parked car wounded two people when it destroyed the side of a government-run bank. In Baiji, 180 km (112 miles) north of Baghdad, bombs attached to fuel tankers wounded three drivers.

Last month at least 237 people were killed and 603 wounded in attacks, mainly bombings, according to a Reuters tally, making June one of the bloodiest months in Iraq since U.S. troops withdrew at the end of last year.

The worst incident occurred on June 13 when bombers targeted Shi'ite pilgrims, killing more than 70 people. Iraq's al Qaeda wing has claimed some of the recent bombings against Shi'ites.

Late on Wednesday, gunmen bombed a Baghdad Municipality employee's house, killing his wife and two of his daughters and wounding him and two other children, police said.

(Reporting by Khalid al-Taea; Writing by Suadad al-Salhy; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)