Bombs killed a U.S. soldier and seven Iraqis on Monday as politicians haggled
over key posts in the new Cabinet, officials said. Another American died the day
before in northern Iraq, according to a U.S. statement.
Iraqi soldiers and civilians gather at the
site of the explosion following a car bomb attack, Monday, May 8, 2006. A
car bomb exploded targeting a police patrol wounding several pedestrians.
[AP] |
Monday's worst attack occurred when a bomb exploded in
a car parked near an Iraqi court in central Baghdad, killing five Iraqi civilians
and wounding 10, said police Lt. Col. Falah Mohamadawi.
In eastern Baghdad, a car bomb exploded during morning rush hour near a
police patrol on Palestine street in eastern Baghdad, killing two policemen and
wounding 12 Iraqis: five policemen and seven civilians, said police Lt. Ahmed
Qassim.
Southeast of the capital, a U.S. military convoy was hit by a roadside bomb
at about 11:10 a.m., damaging one vehicle and killing a U.S. army soldier riding
in it, the military said.
On Sunday, another American soldier was killed and one wounded near Tal Afar
while U.S. troops were helping Iraqi forces attack a building where insurgents
were firing at civilians and soldiers, the U.S. command said.
Tal Afar is 260 miles northwest of Baghdad and about 95 miles east of the
Syrian border.
President Bush had cited Tal Afar as a success story in U.S. and Iraqi
efforts to suppress the insurgency.
The two American fatalities raised to at least 2,421 the number of members of
the U.S. military who have died since the beginning of the war in 2003,
according to an Associated Press count.
On Saturday, a chemical weapons expert for a major Islamic extremist group
was killed by security forces in Baghdad, American and Iraqi officials said. Ali
Wali, a member of Ansar al-Islam, died during a raid on a suspected militant
safe house in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Mansour, the U.S. command
said.
Wali's body was recovered from the scene by civilians and later identified at
a morgue, the officials said. Iraq's government described him as the top
official in charge of training fighters; planning suicide attacks, kidnappings,
ambushes; and manufacturing explosives for Ansar al-Islam, a mostly Kurdish
insurgent group. In addition to toxins and poisons, Wali also was an expert in
the use of artillery, tanks and anti-aircraft weapons, the U.S. command
said.