Bombing attacks killed at least 13 people in the Baghdad area on Monday as Iraqi officials braced for new violence ahead of a planned pullout next week of American forces from major cities and urban centers.
As of June 30, most of the 133,000 U.S. soldiers will be housed in large bases outside Baghdad and other cities.
In Baghdad's Sadr City, a roadside bomb went off next to a bus carrying high school students to their final exams on Monday, killing at least three people and injuring 13, including three of the students, police said, according to the AP.
In the deadliest attack, police said at least five people died and 20 were injured by a car bomb in the Karradah district of the Iraqi capital
Another roadside bomb targeted a police patrol in a commercial area of eastern Baghdad's Ur district, killing three and injuring 25. In another attack, a man wearing an explosive vest blew himself up at a checkpoint leading to the mayor's offices in Abu Ghraib. The suicide bombing killed two people and wounded another five, police said.
