A pair of roadside bombs went off near a bank in central Baghdad early Monday, killing a policeman, while the bullet-riddled bodies of eight men were found dumped around the Iraqi capital overnight.
The first bomb in Baghdad went off around 7:30 a.m.; the second followed an hour later after reporters and police had arrived on the scene.
Two other roadside bomb attacks on Iraqi police patrols wounded seven people.
Elsewhere, a car bomb has exploded outside an Iraqi bank, killing 10 people and wounding 15 in the town of Suweira. Major Mohammed Hassan of the Suweira police confirmed to AFP the explosion happened early in the morning in the mostly Shiite town, 65 kilometers (35 miles) southeast of Baghdad.
Two of the bodies dumped in Baghdad were found in a trash pit in Sadr City. The victims, found bound and blindfolded, were estimated to be in their early 20s but their identities were not known, police Capt. Mohannad al-Bahadli said.
Six other bodies, similarly bound and shot, were found in other Baghdad districts, police said.
In addition, two Marines died in fighting Sunday in Anbar province, bringing to nine the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq over the past three days.
North of the capital, security forces moved into a town gripped by a spate of revenge killings between Sunnis and Shiites, as residents huddled at home. U.S troops detained three police officials in the area for failing to intervene in the killings, police said.
Meanwhile, a special panel on Iraq formed by the US Congress but backed by the administration of President George W. Bush intends to propose major shifts in the US strategy in Iraq by early next year, The Los Angeles Times reported.
Citing unnamed members of the group, the daily said that two options under consideration would represent reversals of US policy: withdrawing American forces in phases, and bringing neighboring Iran and Syria into a joint effort to stop the fighting.
The 10-member commission led by former secretary of state James Baker has agreed that change must be made, the report said. "It's not going to be 'stay the course,'" the paper quotes one participant as saying. "The bottom line is, (current policy) isn't working. There's got to be another way."
