Two Iraqi security officers were killed on Wednesday while patrolling near the northern city of Tikrit, said the police.

"Unknown gunmen shot down two officers as they were patrolling along the main road between Tikrit and Kirkuk, close to the Hemreen oilfields," Colonel Hassan Ahmed of the Salahudin police headquarters told Xinhua.

The attackers left the bodies on the roadside near the Hemreen mountain and fled the scene, Ahmed added.

In a separate attack on Wednesday, unidentified gunmen shot dead 1st Lt. Ghazi Hoshi, an Interior Ministry intelligence officer, as he was driving to work in Doura neighborhood in southern Baghdad, according to the police.

Insurgents have frequently targetted Iraq's interim government officials and the fledgling security forces regarded as collaborators with the US occupation troops.