Car bombings and shootings killed nine people across Iraq on Sunday, authorities said, as militants kidnapped soldiers in an embattled province where al-Qaida-linked fighters hold portions of two major cities. According to AP, Kirkuk deputy police chief Maj. Gen. Torhan Abdul-Rahman Youssef said three car bombs exploded Sunday afternoon simultaneously in separate residential neighborhoods. Youssef said the blasts killed four people and wounded 14. The northern city of Kirkuk is 290 kilometers (180 miles) from the capital, Baghdad. In Baghdad, police and medical officials said gunmen shot dead a former army officer and his wife in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad's northeastern suburbs. Police officers also found three bodies around the capital, their hands and feet tied, all killed by what appeared to be close-range gunshots to the head, officials said. Sunday night, a car bomb went off near a mosque in Mishahda area, killing three people and wounding 13 others, said police and hospital officials. Mishahda is 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of Baghdad. Those officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.