Thousands of Shiites protested the U.S. occupation of Iraq on Friday after the detention of several supporters of a local cleric, while Sunnis closed places of worship elsewhere in a show of anger over alleged sectarian violence against the members of this minority. The protests, which included about 6,000 demonstrators in the three cities, followed cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's call Wednesday to reject the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
In violence elsewhere, a suicide bombing targeting the house of Iraqi national security adviser, Mouwafak al-Rubaie, killed two civilians and injured three in the Baghdad neighborhood of Kazimiyah, police said, accrding to The AP.
A U.S. soldier was killed early Friday in a vehicle accident caused by roadside bomb attack near Taji, 16 kms north of Baghdad, the military said.
A roadside bomb also destroyed a U.S. military truck and injured a number of American troops on a highway in southeastern Baghdad, said a military spokeswoman and police Lt. Mazin Saeed. A rocket attack on Abu Ghraib prison, western Baghdad, meanwhile, injured five detainees, three seriously, the military said.
Two children were killed and their mother was wounded in an explosion late Thursday outside a Shiite Muslim mosque in Baghdad, an army official said Friday.
