Violence in Iraq on Saturday killed eight people including a police officer, his wife and two children, and gunmen also kidnapped five police officers, officials said.

Gunmen broke into the home of the administrator for the Rashid area, south of Baghdad, killing one of his guards, an interior ministry official said.

They then moved to the nearby house of Captain Adnan al-Obaidi, a member of a police anti-terrorism unit, and killed him, his wife and their two children, the official said.

A medical official confirmed the toll.

Gunmen also shot dead the imam of a Sunni mosque near the main southern port city of Basra, police and a Sunni official said.

Near Ramadi, west of Baghdad, security forces tried to arrest Mohammed Khamis Abu Risha, who is wanted in connection with the killing of five soldiers, sparking clashes with armed tribesmen in which two of them were killed, police said.

Abu Risha is the nephew of powerful tribal sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, who is a key supporter of Sunni anti-government protesters in Anbar province and who led the uprising against Al-Qaeda in the province from 2007.

The nephew confirmed to AFP that two members of his tribe were killed.

Hundreds of gunmen then gathered in the area of the Anbar Operations Command headquarters near Ramadi, police said.

Staff Lieutenant General Murdhi al-Mahalawi, head of the Anbar Operations Command, told reporters gunmen kidnapped five police in the Ramadi area.

A police lieutenant colonel had earlier said that 10 security force personnel were kidnapped in the incident.

The area is one of the main centres of the Sunni protest movement in Iraq, which began almost five months ago.

Demonstrators from the Sunni Arab minority accuse the authorities of marginalising and targeting their community, including through wrongful detentions and accusations of involvement in terrorism.

While the government has made some concessions, such as freeing prisoners and raising the salaries of Sunni anti-Al-Qaeda fighters, underlying issues have not been addressed.

Bombs against Iraqi Sunnis kill 51
Baquba, Iraq (AFP) May 17, 2013 - Bombs targeting Sunnis, including two near a mosque and one at a funeral procession, killed 51 people in Iraq on Friday, officials said, after dozens died in two days of attacks on Shiites.

The violence raises the spectre of tit-for-tat killings common during the height of sectarian bloodletting in Iraq that killed tens of thousands of people, and comes at a time of simmering tension between the country's Sunni minority and Shiite majority.

One bomb exploded as worshippers were leaving Saria mosque in the city of Baquba, north of Baghdad, while a second detonated after people gathered at the scene of the first blast, killing a total of 41 people and wounding 57, police and a doctor said.

"Authorities should stop these daily explosions and car bombs against innocent people," Abbas al-Zaidi, 47, said near the scene of the blasts.

Security forces cordoned off the area and the main hospital in Baquba, an AFP journalist said.

A string of ambulances carried victims to the hospital, and police and soldiers also helped transport the wounded and dead.

In Madain, south of Baghdad, a roadside bomb exploded near a funeral procession for a Sunni man, killing eight people and wounding at least 25 others, security and medical officials said.

And a bomb in a coffee shop in the Sunni city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, killed two people and wounded eight, police and a doctor.

In other violence on Friday, gunmen killed a government employee and one of his relatives in the northern city of Kirkuk, police and a doctor said.

Security forces and other government employees are often targeted by militant groups in Iraq.

With the latest attacks, more than 240 people have been killed in violence so far in May, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources.

The bombings near the mosque in Baquba are the latest in a series of attacks that have targeted both Sunni and Shiite places of worship in recent weeks, and come after two days of attacks targeting Shiites.

On Thursday, a suicide bomber killed 12 people at the entrance of Al-Zahraa husseiniyah, a Shiite place of worship in Kirkuk, where relatives of victims from violence the day before were receiving condolences.

Car bombs exploded in three Shiite-majority areas of Baghdad on Thursday, killing 10 people, while 21 people died in a series of bombings that mainly hit Shiite areas of the capital the previous day.

Gunmen also shot dead the brother of a Sunni MP in Baghdad on Thursday.

United Nations envoy Martin Kobler called on Friday for Iraqi leaders to stop the violence.

"It is the responsibility of all leaders to stop the bloodshed in this country and to protect their citizens," Kobler said in a statement. "Small children are burned alive in cars. Worshippers are cut down outside their own mosques. This is beyond unacceptable."

Tensions are festering between the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite, and members of the Sunni minority who accuse authorities of targeting their community, including through wrongful detentions and accusations of involvement in terrorism.

Protests broke out in Sunni areas of Iraq almost five months ago.

While the government has made some concessions, such as freeing prisoners and raising the salaries of Sunni anti-Al-Qaeda fighters, underlying issues have not been addressed.

On April 23, security forces moved on protesters near the town of Hawijah in Kirkuk province, sparking clashes that killed 53 people.

Dozens more died in subsequent unrest that included revenge attacks on security forces, raising fears of a return to the all-out sectarian conflict that ravaged Iraq from 2006 to 2008.

Violence has fallen from those peaks but attacks are still common, killing more than 200 people in each of the first five months of this year, according to AFP figures.