A car bomb killed six people in central Baghdad on Monday, police said, the first bombing in the capital since Iraq's football win in the Asian Cup brought a brief respite in the violence across the country. According to Reuters, police said 12 people were also injured in the explosion in al-Tayran square in Bab al-Shorji district, a mainly Shi'ite area.
Even amid the joy over the football win, tragedy struck the capital. In just one Baghdad neighborhood, four people died of celebratory gunshot wounds. Scores were wounded nationwide, the AP reported.
Meanwhile, three American troops died in fighting west of Baghdad, the military said Monday. The soldiers died Thursday while conducting combat operations in Anbar province, according to a brief statement. Earlier, the American military said that a US soldier had been killed during operations in eastern Baghdad on Sunday.
The deaths raised to at least 3,652 members of the U.S. military who have died since the start of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to the Associated Press count. Some 70 American soldiers were killed this month.
