A suicide bomber targeting Iraqi troops and civilians marking Iraq's Army Day killed at least nine people and injured a dozen in central Baghdad on Sunday, police said. Among the dead were four police officers, three Iraqi soldiers and one civilian, a police officer said, according to the AP. At least 12 other people were injured in the attack, which took place around 12:30 p.m. local time.
In another attack in Baghdad, at least four people died and 11 were hurt in a vehicle bomb blast in the mixed northeastern district of Al-Qahira, security officials said.
Earlier Sunday in Baghdad, a Shiite tribal sheikh who was part of an attempt to form an armed group to combat militias in his Baghdad neighborhood was shot and killed, police said. Sheikh Ismaiel Abbas, believed to be 45, was outside his house in Shaab when he was shot by gunmen driving by in two cars, a police officer said.
Meanwhile, a local official at the morgue in Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, said a bullet-riddled body was found Sunday morning in the city.
Also Sunday, the U.S. military said that an American soldier died after being hit by a roadside bomb in Iraq's restive Diyala province. The soldier died Saturday when the bomb went off near his vehicle during an operation in the province northeast of Baghdad, the military said.
