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BAGHDAD, July 21: At least 12 people, including a US soldier, were killed in a string of attacks in the Iraqi capital and known hotspots on Wednesday, adding to the security headache for the new government.
The trail of blood led from a hospital in Baghdad to a car bomb in a residential district of the capital to fighting between guerillas and US soldiers in the restive cities of Ramadi and Samarra.
Iraq's barely three-week-old government faces the task of crushing a resistance that carries out almost daily attacks against the security forces, targeted assassinations and hostage-taking of foreigners in an apparently organized campaign.
At least four people were killed when a car bomb ripped through a residential neighbourhood in Baghdad, sending body parts hurtling onto the roof of nearby houses, the interior ministry said.
Three mutilated bodies were seen covered in white and green cloth near where the blast occurred down a small side street flanked by low-level apartments. "The car does not belong to anyone in the neighbourhood. Someone came, put it there and left," said Hashim Hussein, 28, who lives in the area.
"There were five men standing in the street next to the car who are the victims of the explosion which was very powerful to the extent that body parts were thrown to the roof of the neighbouring houses," said Mr Hussein.
A smouldering wreck of twisted metal, corndoned off by Iraqi police, was all that was left of the car. Another two people were killed and four wounded in Baghdad when a missile ripped through the seventh floor of the Adnan Khairallah hospital, on the Tigris river, although it was not immediately clear if the site was itself the target.
"We heard three loud explosions and then a missile hit the seventh floor head on," said Mohammed Tafash, a doctor. The missile punctured the glass front and passed through two wards, said an eyewitness. Remains of medical equipment and broken glass littered the blood-stained floor.
CLASHES IN RAMADI: Four people were killed and 14 wounded in clashes and a suspected car bomb blast in Ramadi. A US military spokesman said American soldiers were battling guerillas in the city, but denied there had been a car bombing.
"Three brothers, Sattar, Mustapha and Yussef Khalil, were killed in a car bomb explosion," said a doctor at the main hospital in Ramadi, capital of the restive Al Anbar province.
A second doctor said a fourth corpse had been brought to the hospital along with 14 other wounded people amid the chaos, which police said was a result of clashes between US soldiers and guerillas.
One US soldier was also killed and six wounded when their patrol hit a roadside bomb shortly after midnight in Duluiyah, a town near Samarra where fierce fighting claimed five Iraqi lives on Tuesday.
The latest US casualty brought to 662 the number of American troops killed in action in Iraq since the start of the invasion. US Central Command reported two US soldiers and two marines were killed in the Al Anbar province on Tuesday.
SCIENTIST'S BODY FOUND: Police also said the mutilated body of an Iraqi scientist and an unidentified corpse were found in Samarra, scene of sporadic deadly clashes and where a powerful suicide car bomb attack on July 8 on the city's Iraqi National Guard headquarters killed five US soldiers and four Iraqi guardsmen.
Elsewhere, a policeman died and three were wounded in the northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk when their patrol was targeted by rocket-propelled grenades, police said.
In Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, four members of a special security unit charged with protecting the country's power installations were injured when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb. -AFP
