At least 20 people were killed Friday in suicide bombings in Baghdad and northern Iraq. Iraqi security services said 15 civilians and five Iraqi soldiers were among the dead. More than 50 people were wounded in the attacks which targeted Iraqi and US forces.
A series of car bombs targeted US and Iraqi forces in Baghdad Friday. Two Iraqi soldiers were killed and six were injured when a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb near an Iraqi patrol in Andalus Square in central Baghdad, Col. Salman Abdul Karim said.
According to The AP, car bombs also went off near an American convoy in the Rustamiyah area of southeastern Baghdad, witnesses said, and near an Iraqi patrol in the north of the city.
A suicide car bomb exploded on a bridge overlooking the home of President Jalal Talabani, killing three of his guards, a spokesman for Iraq's largest Shiite Muslim group said. The attack occurred about 8 p.m. on Al-Hussein Bridge over the Tigris River. Several people were wounded, including some civilians.
Another bomb in the north of the country was detonated by a man on a motorbike at a checkpoint in the town of Al-Sharqat.
Earlier Friday, mortar shells exploded near the headquarters of an Iraqi commando battalion in the Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah of north Baghdad, police said. Three mortars also fell across the Tigris River in the Shiite district Kazimiyah, police added. No casualties nor damage were reported.
Also Friday, the U.S. command said American and Iraqi forces raided suspected "terrorist safe houses" in the Ghazaliyah and the Abu Ghraib districts Thursday. Eight suspects were taken into custody, a U.S. statement said Friday, and soldiers found an Iraqi general's uniform in one location.
On Thursday, two US marines were killed by a bomb near the Trebil border crossing with Jordan.
