At least 25 people died yesterday in coordinated car bomb attacks in western Baghdad, a doctor at a hospital said.
At least 55 people were wounded, said the doctor at Yarmouk hospital, which received the victims.
The attacks occurred in a commercial area and public transport hub in a mixed Sunni and Shiite neighborhood.
In central Baghdad, a bomb exploded in an open-air market, killing four people and wounding 15, police said. The explosives were hidden in a CD player delivered to an electronics repair shop there, police said. The man who asked for the repair left the area before it exploded.
Police also said that two roadside bombs targeted an Iraqi police patrol in an eastern neighborhood of the capital, killing four policemen -- including a lieutenant colonel -- and injuring 12 people.
In Kirkuk, 290km north of the Iraqi capital, another roadside bomb killed three civilians -- including an eight-year-old girl -- and hurt six, police said.
Meanwhile, the death toll of US soldiers in Iraq reached 2,975, a macabre milestone in the midst of the Christmas season, surpassing the toll from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks which sparked the US "war on terror."
Three US soldiers were killed around Baghdad yesterday, bringing the number of US fatalities in Iraq since the 2003 invasion to two more than the number killed in the attacks in the US in 2001.
Though tens of thousands of Iraqis have also perished, many in a murderous wave of sectarian violence wracking their country, the landmark US death toll represents another political body blow for President George W. Bush.
"People will be aware of the fact that that milestone [has passed], the press will point it out and people will make that connection," said Eric Davis professor of political science at Middlebury College, Vermont.
Another ghoulish landmark in Iraq is already looming, when the honor roll of dead soldiers tops 3,000 and the mounting body count underscores the bitter reality of the deepening crisis in Iraq.
"The problem is the larger issue of US policy in Iraq, and recent polls that show that President Bush has very, very little political capital left on Iraq," Davis said.
A CNN poll released on Dec. 18 found support for Bush's handling of Iraq had plunged to 28 percent, six points lower than in October. A record 70 percent said they disapproved of the manner in which he was managing the war.
Bush spent Christmas at the Camp David retreat before going down to his Crawford, Texas ranch, for a period of soul searching on Iraq and is expected to unveil a new strategy with an address in the new year.
A total of 2,973 victims died on September 11, 2001, when 19 al-Qaeda hijackers seized four airliners and steered them at targets in New York City and Washington.
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