Summary
Militants seized a village in north Iraq on Friday as attacks nationwide killed 27 people, including at least 10 policemen, amid a surge in bloodshed ahead of parliamentary elections.
The latest unrest comes barely a week before campaigning begins for the April 30 election due to take place as Iraq grapples with its worst protracted bloodletting since a brutal 2006-07 Sunni-Shiite sectarian war in which tens of thousands of people were killed.
In Sarha, militants mounted a coordinated pre-dawn assault on the village involving gunmen and a suicide truck bomb, and were in control of it as of noon (0900 GMT) on Friday, according to Lieutenant General Abdulamir al-Zaidi, head of a northern Iraq security command, and Shallal Abdul, mayor of the nearby town of Tuz Khurmatu.
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