Six American troops late Thursday were wounded in the northern city of Mosul when a convoy was attacked by a car bomber, Capt. Patricia Brewer said in Baghdad. According to a witness, Faisal Qasim, the bombing was carried out by a suicide bomber who slammed his car into a convoy of seven armored vehicles, striking the fourth.
Also late Thursday, gunmen shot and killed Abdul Rahman al-Samarie, the Sunni imam of the Thaat Al-Nitaqeen mosque in eastern Baghdad, Col. Ahmed Aboud, chief of the New Baghdad police station said Friday. Al-Samarie was walking outside the mosque when gunmen in a vehicle opened fire.
Meanwhile, Shiite and Kurdish officials said they may need another week to put together Iraq's coalition despite progress in resolving disagreements over territory and Cabinet posts. "We will be seeing a government formed next week," projected Haitham al-Husseiny, who leads the office of Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance.
