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Suicide Car Bombers Kill 16 People in Iraq | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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BAGHDAD, Iraq, AP -Three suicide car bombers targeted Iraqi and U.S. security patrols Sunday, killing 16 people in the latest surge of suicide attacks after days of intense and incessant violence.

The first suicide attack killed two policemen and one civilian in the eastern New Baghdad neighborhood of the capital, police 1st Lt. Mohammed Jasim said. The attack also wounded seven policemen, some seriously, and one other civilian.

About an hour later a second suicide car bomber exploded near a police convoy near the Bay”a bus station in southern Baghdad, killing three police commandos and four civilians, Capt. Talib Thamir said. Three civilians were also injured in that blast.

A third suicide car bomb missed a U.S. convoy but struck two minibuses, killing six civilians in Mahmoudiya, a troubled town about 20 miles south of Baghdad, police Capt. Rashid al-Samarie said. Nine others were also wounded in the attack.

After a lull in attacks after a security sweep last month through the capital, attacks have increased in recent days, including a suicide bombing Saturday that ignited a tanker truck and killed at least 60 people in Musayyib, about 40 miles south of Baghdad.

On Friday, at least seven suicide attacks exploded in the country, killing at least 30 and wounding over 110 people.

Witnesses to Saturday”s attack said the fuel tanker was moving slowly in the center of the town when the bomber detonated his charge nearby. A cluster of houses and shops caught fire, the witnesses said.

The explosion occurred as dozens of people were heading to the mosque in the center of the town for the sunset prayers. Dozens of other people, who usually go out in the late afternoon when the worst of the heat ebbs, were strolling about nearby shops and restaurants.

Musayyib, a religiously mixed town along the Euphrates River, sits in the &#34triangle of death,&#34 an area so-named because of the large number of kidnappings and killings of Shiite Muslims traveling between Baghdad and the Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf.

Also on Saturday, a U.S. soldier was killed and two others wounded in a bomb attack in northern Iraq, the U.S. military said.

The Task Force Liberty soldiers were attacked in Kirkuk province, the military said in a brief statement issued from Tikrit on Sunday morning. The military said the soldiers were targeted by an &#34improvised explosive device,&#34 usually roadside bombs that insurgents detonate as U.S. vehicles pass by. The name of the deceased soldier was withheld pending notification of kin.