Iraqi forces killed a local al-Qaeda in Iraq leader and two other insurgents in a raid north of Baghdad yesterday, and roadside bombs killed a US soldier and an Iraqi policemen, officials said.
Two mortars or rockets also were fired yesterday at the heavily fortified Green Zone, where Iraq's government meets and the US embassy is based in downtown Baghdad. One landed inside but failed to detonate, and the other exploded nearby on the other side of the Tigris River, the US military said.
No casualties were immediately reported.
A strict curfew was maintained in Baqubah, 55km northeast of Baghdad, where insurgent attacks the day before had killed 30 people, officials said.
In Samarra, a city of 300,000 people 95km north of Baghdad, Iraqi commando forces acting on a tip raided a house where al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Hamid al-Takhi and two other insurgents were hiding, said police Captain Laith Mohammed.
All three were killed in a gunbattle, according to Mohammed, who said al-Takhi had been responsible for many insurgent attacks against coalition forces and civilians in the area.
On Thursday night, a US soldier was killed by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad that destroyed the vehicle he was riding in, the military said.
Yesterday, a road side bomb targeting an Iraqi police patrol exploded in southwestern Baghdad at 8:20am, killing one policeman and wounding two, said police Captain Jamil Hussein.
New information also emerged about an unusual series of coordinated attacks by insurgents on Thursday in and around Baqubah, 55 km northeast of Baghdad.
Using mortar rounds, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire, the insurgents attacked five police checkpoints, a police station and an Iraqi army headquarters, Iraqi and US officials said.
By the time the fighting ended, seven Iraqi soldiers and 21 insurgents had been killed, Iraqi Major General Ahmed al-Awad said. He said 46 attackers were captured.
US officials said yesterday that seven Iraqi soldiers and two civilians also were killed and the wounded included 10 Iraqi soldiers, four policemen and four civilians.
Authorities imposed a curfew, residents said roads to Baghdad had been sealed off, and those restrictions remained in place yesterday morning.
In other violence, police yesterday found the corpses of two middle-aged Iraqi men in a mostly Sunni Arab neighborhood of western Baghdad.
The men, handcuffed, blindfolded and bullet-ridden, appeared to be the latest victims of a wave of kidnappings and killings by Sunni and Shiite death squads that target civilians, police said.
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