Violence which raged across Iraq on Thursday took the lives of 14 people, with much of the violence occurring in and around the nation's capital. A car bomb that exploded near a police patrol in Baghdad killed one Iraqi civilian, while an Iraqi army lieutenant colonel was killed by gunmen in the western part of the city.
In the town of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, gunmen shot and killed tribal leader Mukhaibir Al Alwani, according to Reuters.
Another three tribal members were also killed in a drive-by shooting north of Baghdad, according to the AP.
In the northern Iraqi town of Kirkuk, an Iraqi army captain and his driver were also killed by gunmen.
Earlier in the day, a car bomb which exploded in a Baghdad market killed six Iraqi civilians and wounded at least 13 others. According to Iraqi police sources, the bomb occurred in the morning hours in the Shula district of the capital, a largely Shiite neighborhood.
The explosion, said Iraqi Major Moussa Abdul Karim, was followed by firefights between US soldiers and resistance fighters, reported the AP.
A second bomb went off as an Iraqi patrol passed in Baghdad's Karradah neighborhood, killing one policeman and injuring three bystanders, police said.
In the northern city of Kirkuk, gunmen killed an Iraqi Army captain and his driver as they were heading to work, said police Capt. Firhad Talabani, according to the AP.
A local government member, Khalid Ibrahim Ali, was seriously wounded after being shot by drive-by gunmen in western Baghdad's Baiyaa neighborhood, police said.
Meanwhile, the discovery of ten bodies throughout the predominantly Shiite Shula neighborhood, along with US claims that evidence exists of death squads operating within Iraq's ministry of interior, has prompted an investigation into the matter.
The ten victims had apparently been shot execution style and then dumped through Shula.
The US said that American soldiers had detained 22 men wearing police uniforms in the process of killing a Sunni man, said Iraq's deputy interior minister in charge of domestic intelligence, Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal.
"We have been informed about this and the interior minister has formed an investigation committee to learn more about the Sunni person and those 22 men," said Kamal, "particularly whether they work for the Interior Ministry or claim to belong to the ministry," he added.
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