Three suicide car bombs, including one targeting a U.S. convoy, and several shootings left at least six Iraqis dead in Baghdad on Wednesday, as a weeklong surge of violence by insurgents continued on the streets of the capital.
South of the city, one Iraqi policeman was killed and two were seriously wounded when their patrol was hit by a roadside bomb in the town of Mowailha, said police Capt. Muthana Al-Furati.
The bloodletting followed a day when insurgents killed at least 15 people in Iraq, including two U.S. soldiers hit by a suicide bomber in Baghdad, and a former aide to Saddam Hussein’s half brother, Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, who was gunned down in southern Iraq, officials said.
Bomb near Abu Ghraib
On Wednesday, a car bomb exploded near a U.S. convoy in an area of western Baghdad where the notorious Abu Ghraib prison is located, setting an oil tanker on fire, said police Maj. Moussa Abdulkarim. Two Iraqis were killed and five wounded, said Hussam Abdulrazaq, an official at the nearby al-Yarmouk Hospital. The U.S. military had no immediate information on the incident.
The two other car bombs exploded in southern Baghdad. One missed a police convoy but hit a civilian car, killing two Iraqis and wounding four, said police Cap. Falah al-Muhamadwai. The other exploded in a car park near in the Dora area, wounding four civilians, said police Lt. Hassan Falah.
In Sadr city, a poor section of eastern Baghdad, gunmen in a speeding car fired on policeman Ali Talib as he walked toward his car, killing him, said Col. Hussein Abdulwahid of the local police force. In another part of east Baghdad, gunmen attacked a Health Ministry car, killing the driver and wounding one unidentified passenger, said police Col. Hassan Jaloub.
On Tuesday night, an attack by a suicide car bomber near an American patrol in southern Baghdad killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded four, Lt. Col. Clifford Kent, a spokesman for America’s 3rd Infantry Division, said Wednesday. Seven Iraqi civilians also were rushed to Al-Yarmouk Hospital with injuries, an official there said.
Basra shooting
In the southern city of Basra, Abdulal al-Batat, a former aide to Saddam’s half brother al-Hassan, was killed Tuesday when gunmen fired at him outside his home, said police Lt. Col. Karim al-Zaydi.
Al-Hassan, who was suspected of financing insurgents after U.S. troops ousted Saddam in 2003, was captured in Syria and turned over to Iraqi authorities in February.
Al-Qaida in Iraq, the nation’s most feared terror group, claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s worst attack, a suicide bombing near an army recruitment center in Baghdad that police said killed at least six Iraqis and wounded 44.
For the past week, there has been a surge of violence by militants across the capital, with explosions often going off one after another in the morning.