A suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt blew himself up inside a coffee shop east of Baghdad on Wednesday morning, killing 15 people and injuring 20 others, police and medical sources said. The explosion hit a restaurant in Mandali, on the Iranian border.
Meanwhile, roadside bombings and gunbattles across Iraq killed nine U.S. servicemen, and U.S. authorities were examining a body found in a river south of Baghdad that Iraqi police believe is one of three U.S. soldiers seized in an ambush nearly two weeks ago, officials said Wednesday.
The military said seven soldiers and two Marines were killed in separate attacks Tuesday, bringing the U.S. death toll for the month to at least 80. Last month, 104 U.S. troops were killed in Iraq.
In north Baghdad, gunmen wearing army uniforms stopped a bus carrying college students to a Shiite neighborhood, entered Tuesday the vehicle and sprayed the passengers with gunfire, police said. Eight students were killed and two were wounded.
At another fake checkpoint near Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, gunmen killed six people from one family - a woman, her 5-year-old son and four men — and stole their car, police said. In all, at least 100 Iraqis died or found dead nationwide Tuesday, according to police. They included 33 people found shot execution-style and their bodies scattered across Baghdad.
