IRAQ: For the second consecutive day, Baghdad's Green Zone, a secure area which houses the headquarters of the US-led coalition, was the target of a bomb attack.
At least four large explosions could be heard across the city shortly before 8 p.m. local time yesterday, as militants fired mortar rounds into the compound.
The US military confirmed that explosions had hit "central Baghdad" and that four people had been injured. They did not give further details.
On Monday the Green Zone was shaken by three explosions, again by suspected mortar rounds. No casualties were reported.
American military combat casualties climbed yesterday to 252 since the invasion when a roadside bomb killed one soldier and wounded two troops in Baghdad.
British combat deaths rose to 52 with the report of a Royal Marine killed by hostile fire during a military operation last Friday.
The bombings come amid an increasingly bloody Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, for US forces occupying Iraq.
Ten days ago the Rashid Hotel, which lies within the secure area, was the target of a missile attack. Mr Paul Wolfowitz, the US Deputy Defence Secretary, was staying in the hotel at the time, and one soldier was killed. The building has now been all but abandoned.
In a separate attack yesterday, one US soldier was killed and two others wounded in a roadside bombing in Baghdad.
Insurgents using small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades also attacked a hotel housing American troops in the northern city of Mosul, but caused no casualties.
Violence has also struck the southern cities of Najaf and Karbala, religious centres for the country's Shia majority.
The two cities have been the centres of clashes between factions supporting rival clerics jostling for power in postwar Iraq.
Three Iraqis were killed in a bomb blast overnight on Monday in Karbala, while in Najaf suspected Baathists kidnapped and killed a judge who had been investigating crimes carried out by members of the previous regime.
Another judge died yesterday in the northern city of Kirkuk, after being shot by US soldiers lying in wait for a different target, according to a relative who was wounded in the same vehicle.
The violence prompted Spain yesterday to recall most of its diplomats in Baghdad for consultation, following an earlier lead by the Netherlands and Bulgaria. Spain has about 1,300 soldiers in Iraq and was one of the strongest supporters of the US-led invasion.
Ms Ana Palacio, the Spanish Foreign Minister, said that embassy staff had been moved from Baghdad temporarily "given that it is a very complicated moment".
However, she added that the diplomats' recall did not mean that Spain was withdrawing from Iraq. The embassy will remain open but with only a skeleton staff.