Iraq: Three US soldiers were killed yesterday when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb northwest of Baghdad, the US command said. The latest deaths occurred mid-morning, the command said without specifying the exact location or giving further details.
Five Americans died on Saturday in bombings in the southern area of the capital. All the victims were assigned to the army's multinational Brigade-Baghdad which is responsible for security in the capital.
Other violence claimed the lives of 23 Iraqis yesterday, including seven who were killed when three explosions occurred just outside the heavily-guarded Green Zone in the capital, not far from Iraq's defence ministry. More sectarian killings were also reported.
The three explosions occurred at about 8am killing seven Iraqi civilians and wounding eight, US and Iraqi officials said. Three of the wounded worked at the ministry, an official there said.
At least eight other mortars or rockets exploded at about the same time on the other side of the Tigris river in central Baghdad, without causing injuries, police said.
The violence occurred a day after Iraq's parliament met inside the Green Zone to elect top government officials in a breakthrough in a long political standoff.
Parliament elected a president, two vice-presidents, a parliament speaker and two deputies, and gave Jawad al-Maliki, the prime minister-designate, 30 days to choose a cabinet.
Despite the violence, some Iraqis in Baghdad said they were encouraged by the legislators' success in finally beginning to form a new government.
"It took too long, but it is a good step in the right direction. It could be a springboard for the stability of this country," said Hussein Farij in Tahrir Square in central Baghdad.
"We pin a great hope on the formation of a new government. It must heal our country's many wounds," said Majeed Hameed.
Meanwhile, widespread violence continued.
Also yesterday, the bodies of eight Iraqi men who apparently were killed in captivity were discovered in two areas of Baghdad: six in Azamiyah and two in Sadr City, police said.
The Iraqi Islamic Party, the country's largest Sunni Arab party, also made new allegations about other sectarian killings by death squads.
It said the tortured bodies of an unidentified number of Sunni youths from the Azamiyah area had recently turned up at a local morgue.
The party said Shias also are suffering such killings, but not nearly as many as Sunnis.
"We denounce these horrible crimes against the Iraqi people, and we warn of the consequences of this sectarian cleansing," the party said in a statement.
It urged the new government to stop "the criminal gangs" involved.
- (AP)