Global Arab Network | A mortar attack kills at least 7 in Iraq

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A mortar attack kills at least 7 in Iraq

According to Iraqi police at least seven people have been killed and at least 20 wounded in attacks in and around the capital, Baghdad.

They say the casualties resulted from a mortar attack in Baghdad's Fadiliya neighborhood, and from a car bombing in the Abu Ghraib district just west of the capital.

The U.S. military said an American soldier was killed on Wednesday, in a roadside bombing near a patrol in western Baghdad.

The attack, which happened near a medical compound, occurred two days after a bomb hit a US convoy in Baghdad, killing three US soldiers and two civilians.

At least 20 US soldiers have died in May, making this month the deadliest for the US military compared to the death toll in September 2008 when 25 soldiers were killed.

April had at least 19 US soldier deaths, which is more than double than soldiers killed in March, the lowest since the war began in March 2003.

Four U.S. civilians also have been killed in Iraq since Friday.

They included a top reconstruction official who once headed the Illinois Commerce Commission and a Defense Department employee working for the U.S. Embassy who were killed in the roadside bombing on Monday on the eastern outskirts of the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.

A defense contractor also died in a rocket or mortar attack near the U.S. Embassy and another was found stabbed in his car on Friday.

Iraqis also have faced a resurgence of violence with a series of deadly attacks in recent months, illustrating the resilience of militants despite security gains.

In the latest attack, a car bomb exploded near a medical compound in Abu Ghraib west of Baghdad, killing at least two people and wounding 13, two police officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

Belgium's Foreign Minister Karel de Gucht, meanwhile, called the plans for Iraqis to take over security of their cities after the Americans pull back an important step toward normalization.

De Gucht began a two-day visit to Iraq on Wednesday, the first such visit by a Belgian Cabinet minister since 1990.

Belgium opposed the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein, but like other European countries is reaching out to Iraq as a business and political partner now that security is improving.

Since March 2003 when the war in Iraq began, at least 4,302 members of the US military have been killed, according to the Associated Press.

US forces face a deadline on June 30 to withdraw from urban areas in Iraq according to the US-Iraqi security pact signed in November 2008. (AP, AFP, voanews)

Global Arab Network‎‎

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