Two car bombs in a predominantly Shiite area of central Baghdad killed on Thursday at least 15 people, including five police officers, and injured 28, police Lt. Col. Salman Abdul Karim and officer Ahmed Hatam Al-Sharie said.
Late on Wednesday, four car bombs exploded in Baghdad, killing at least 23 people, including sidewalk diners and passengers at a bus station.
A fifth car bomb targeting a U.S. military convoy missed, killing instead three Iraqis and wounded seven in the northern city of Mosul, officials said, according to The AP.
A pre-dawn raid led by U.S. occupation forces destroyed a hideout in Baghdad used by "extremists" associated with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al Qaeda leader in Iraq, the US military said. The attack killed at least six armed men who opened fire on the troops, the military said.
Separately, a car bomb detonated by remote control hit an Iraqi police patrol in Tuz Khormato, north of Baghdad, killing one policeman and wounding seven civilians, police Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qadr said, according to The AP.
In another incident before dawn Thursday, U.S. troops backed by Iraqi troops and helicopters killed seven "insurgents" who opened fire on the patrol from a home in western Baghdad's Jamiaa neighborhood, said police Maj. Moussa Abdul Karim and 1st Lt. Mohammed al-Heyaali.
Meanwhile, one of Saudi Arabia's most-wanted men was killed by a U.S. airstrike in northwestern Iraq, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq said Thursday, police said. The Web statement said Abdullah Mohammed Rashid al-Roshoud was killed in fighting near Qaem, on the border with Syria. It was signed by al-Zarqawi.
