A car bomb killed at least 25 people and injured 40 on Thursday at an intersection in Baghdad where minibuses pick up and drop off passengers, Iraqi police said. According to Reuters, police in Baghdad said the car bomb went off in the mainly Shi'ite district of Bayaa, in the capital's southwest.
Some 40 vehicles were set ablaze by the bomb which exploded during the morning rush hour. Mortar bombs also slammed into the commercial area of Shorja in central Baghdad, killing at least two people and injuring 14, police said.
Meanwhile, 20 beheaded bodies were discovered Thursday on the banks of the Tigris River southeast of Baghdad, two Iraqi police officers said. The dead - all men aged 20 to 40 years old - had their hands and legs bound, and some of the heads were found next to the bodies, the officers said, according to the AP.
The bodies were found in the Sunni village of Um al-Abeed, near the city of Salman Pak, which lies 14 miles southeast of Baghdad.
In the southern city of Basra, a roadside bomb killed three British troops and injured another in the early hours of Thursday, British military spokesman Major David Gell said. According to him, he conveyed the troops were on foot at the time of the blast in southeastern Basra. Gell said the British soldiers were part of a routine convoy heading out of Basra and had dismounted from their armoured vehicles.
One American soldier died and four were injured in a roadside bombing in east Baghdad Wednesday.
At least 60 Iraqis were killed or found dead across the country, most of them in the Baghdad area, according to police reports. A late night car bombing near a Shiite shrine in Baghdad left 14 people dead.
