90 Iraqis wounded in car bomb: US military
BAGHDAD (AFP) — A car bomb attack in northern Iraq's restive city of Mosul has wounded at least 90 civilians, the American military said Wednesday.
The attack which occurred late Tuesday was carried out by Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the military said.
A nearby coffee shop was also destroyed in the attack, it said without specifying the exact location of the bomb attack.
"This is yet another example of AQI's indiscriminant targeting of innocent civilians and their lack of value on life," said military spokesman Major Patrick Conway.
The military also said
a bomb attack in Iraq's northern Nineveh province killed three US soldiers hours after a bomb ripped through a council office in Baghdad killing four Americans.
The three soldiers and their interpreter were killed at 10:45 pm (1945 GMT) on Tuesday, the military said without giving further details nor specifying where the attack occurred in the province.
In a separate attack in Nineveh, a car bomb exploded in the provincial capital of Mosul on Tuesday wounding 90 civilians, the military said.
It blamed Al-Qaeda in Iraq operatives for the attack in Mosul city, which the military claims is the last urban bastion of the jihadist group.
The deaths of the three soldiers in Nineveh took the military's losses since Monday to seven and its overall death toll in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion to 4,109, according to an AFP tally based on independent website www.icasualties.org.
The Nineveh attack on the soldiers came hours after two soldiers were killed in a bombing in the district council offices of Sadr City, a sprawling Shiite bastion in eastern Baghdad.
Two American civilians were also killed in the Sadr City attack, along with an Italian of Iraqi origin, as well as six Iraqis.
On Monday, two US soldiers were killed in small arms fire after a meeting in the local council office in the town of Madain, south of Baghdad.
Already this month 25 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq, higher than May's figure of 19 which was the lowest monthly toll since the invasion, according to the website.
The Sadr City bombing was a "terrible reminder of the dangers" faced by the Americans working in Iraq, said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
One official from the State Department and two from the Defence Department were killed in the mid-morning attack on Tuesday.
The devastating attack which the US military blamed on Shiite extremists occurred shortly before district council elections were to take place, an Iraqi security official said.
One US soldier, three members of the district council and seven other Iraqis were also wounded in the blast.
The American military said it detained a suspect soon after the attack.
The recent fall in violence across Iraq has led to an increased presence of US troops on the streets, most of them involved in community services to help push the national reconciliation programme.
US military chief in Iraq, General David Petraeus, in a new 23-point document on counter-insurgency guidelines had directed the troops to carry out more dismounted patrols.
"Move mounted, work dismounted. Stop by, don't drive by. Patrol on foot and engage the population," he said in the document issued on June 21.
The 23-point document demands that US soldiers engage with and respect citizens while relentlessly pursuing Al-Qaeda and other extremist groups blamed for destabilising the nation of 25 million people.
"The Iraqi people are the decisive terrain," he said.
