Three American troops died by a roadside bomb on the outskirts of Baghdad on Tuesday and one more was injured, the U.S. military said. A U.S. statement said the soldiers killed on Tuesday were conducting a "route clearance mission" southwest of the capital.
A car bomb killed 18 children at a football field near the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, state television Iraqiya said on Tuesday.
Also on Tuesday, in northern Iraq a suicide truck bomber targeting an Iraqi police station killed six policemen and wounded 25 people, according to Reuters. According to witnesses, the blast in the city of Mosul destroyed the police headquarters.
Earlier this month, U.S. and Iraqi forces launched a major security crackdown in Baghdad by threatening to plunge the country into an all-out civil war, to quell sectarian violence.
Also on Tuesday, U.S. and Iraqi forces staged raids in Baghdad's main Shiite stronghold. Since the major security operation that began, troops have held back on broad sweeps through the teeming Sadr City slum. At least 16 people were arrested after U.S.-Iraqi commandos, using concussion grenades, stormed six homes.
Meanwhile, bombings hit across central Baghdad. At the popular Kabab Abu Ali restaurant, a bomb left in a plastic bag exploded during the busy lunch hours, killing at least three people and injuring 13. At about the same time, a suicide bomber struck an area filled with restaurants and ice cream parlors. At least four people were killed and 11 injured, police said. Other nine people were killed in separate attacks across Iraq, AFP reported.
In another development, Iraqi authorities have arrested a suspect in the attempted assassination of Shiite Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi. The arrest was made after reviewing a security camera video from Monday's blast, which ripped through an awards ceremony at the ministry of public works and killed at least 10 people. Abdul-Mahdi received leg injuries and was briefly hospitalized.
According to Abdul-Mahdi, "Investigations are being done to figure out how the attack was planned."
