BAGHDAD: Two Iraqi judges were killed last week, an official said Tuesday, in a spate of attacks claimed by Al-Qaeda which says it was avenging death sentences being handed down to Sunnis in Shiite prisons.

The latest murders recall a series of attacks against judges across Iraq in 2004 and 2005, in the aftermath of the US-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.

An interior ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said one judge was killed in Utayfiyah, north Baghdad, by silenced pistol on August 17, while another was murdered a day later by a roadside bomb in Al-Amriyah, a western district in the capital.

He added that three others were wounded in Baghdad over a three-day period between August 17 and 19, including the head of the Iraqi Appeals Court Chief Judge Kamal Jabir Bandar, by roadside bombs and drive-by shootings.

Also on August 17, four judges travelling from Baladruz, in Diyala province north of Baghdad, to the provincial capital Baquba were wounded by a bomb attack.

Meanwhile, in the restive northern city of Mosul, several judges travelling in two cars were hit by two roadside bombs on August 17, though none of the vehicles` passengers were wounded.

When Iraqi security forces arrived at the scene to secure the area, a third roadside bomb went off, injuring four soldiers, a police official said.

The Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), Al-Qaeda`s Iraqi front, said in a statement posted on Islamist forums on Monday that they were behind the attacks, warning that "fighters will not remain idle as Sunni Muslims are sentenced to death and killed in Shiite prisons."

The group claimed that so far it has targeted 12 judges, SITE said.

ISI had on Friday claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing, also on August 17, on a crowded Iraqi army recruitment centre in Baghdad that killed 59 people and wounded 100.

A surge of violence in the past two months has sparked concern that Iraqi forces are not yet ready to take over sole responsibility for the country`s security, as the US military prepares to declare an end to combat operations next week.

The US army on Tuesday said the number of American troops in Iraq has fallen below 50,000 -- less than a third of the peak figure of around 170,000 during "the surge" of 2007, when Iraq was in the midst of a brutal sectarian war in which tens of thousands of people were killed.

According to Iraqi figures, disputed by the US, July was the deadliest month in Iraq since May 2008.

BDST: 1617 HRS, August 24, 2010