Baghdad (CNN) -- Six Iraqis were killed in Baghdad and four others wounded in a burst of assassinations and explosions around the capital on Sunday, officials with Iraq's interior ministry said.
The victims included several peopled tied to Iraq's current ruling government, plus one who had been a military leader under former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
The bloodshed also featured at least one less explicitly political attack, when gunmen shot dead a jeweler and his son as they were opening their store Sunday morning in the Zafaraniya neighborhood in southeastern Baghdad. The assailants stole an unspecified amount of gold and fled, according to officials with Iraq's interior ministry, which oversees police in the capital.
The ministry said in the same neighborhood, a water ministry employee was killed Sunday after a sticky bomb attached to his car exploded.
Raghad Farouq -- a government employee who worked with Iraq's parliament -- died after a similar car bombing in the Hurriya area of northwestern Baghdad.
And gunmen using pistols equipped with silencers killed Iraqi police Capt. Mohammed Muhssan outside his home in Zaiyouna, in the eastern part of the capital, according to the ministry.
A former Iraqi army general under Saddam Hussein died when he, too, was shot dead outside of his house in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Ghazaliya.
In addition, two police officers were among four people hurt when a roadside bomb exploded outside a gas station in the Allawi commercial area in central Baghdad, the ministry said.
Overall, violence is down considerably in Iraq from its peak between 2005 and 2007. Yet assassinations, bombs, gunfire and mortar attacks remain regular occurrences.
These latest attacks come at a time of political turmoil in the Middle Eastern nation, amid rising complaints about its domestic governance as well as the continued presence of outside forces on Iraqi soil.
On April 9, for instance, tens of thousands gathered in eastern Baghdad's Mustansriya Square marking eight years after the end of Saddam Hussein's regime and the toppling of his iconic statue in Firdos Square. The demonstrators called for the total withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country by the end of this year.
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