The bombing was the latest in a series of attacks across northern Iraq in
recent days that have tested the capabilities of Iraq's U.S.-trained security
forces.
On Sunday, Iraqi authorities in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, lifted
a partial curfew that was imposed two days earlier in the eastern part of the
city after police repulsed a series of insurgent attacks in which a police
colonel was killed.
The Defense Ministry said security forces had arrested 62 people in a
crackdown across northern Iraq after the street battles.
Iraqi authorities were heartened by the performance of the Mosul police, who
stood their ground and drove off the insurgents.
In November 2004, Mosul's entire 5,500-member police force fled during an
insurgent uprising and the U.S. military had to send American troops and Kurdish
fighters to regain control of the city, Iraq's third largest.
Also Sunday, several U.S. Marines were wounded and a few vehicles were
destroyed by a suicide car bombing in Anbar province, the U.S. military said
without further details. Iraqi police said the attack was in Fallujah, a heavily
guarded city 40 miles west of Baghdad.
Gunmen in Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, ambushed a convoy of
Iraqi trucks, killing two drivers and setting their vehicles on fire, police
Capt. Laith Mohammed said.
A sniper killed a government security guard in southern Baghdad, police said.
Gunmen in Fallujah killed a Sunni preacher, Sheik Ali Hussein al-Jumaili, when
he resisted what appeared to have been a kidnap attempt, police said.
Police found the bodies of five men in Baghdad and one in the southeastern
city of Amarah. All had been shot, police said.
A U.S. military statement said coalition forces killed one man during a raid
north of Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad.
In the Kurdish province of Sulaimaniyah, security forces fired warning shots
to disperse hundreds of demonstrators who burned tires and blocked roads to
protest high fuel prices and poor living conditions. Three people were injured
in the protest in the town of Chamchamal.
Police Lt. Col. Ahmed Nadir said the protest began peacefully, but then some
demonstrators hurled stones, burned tires and attacked shops. Witnesses said the
protesters were angry over fuel shortages, high prices and frequent electricity
outages.
"This is too much. We demand the regional government improve the services in
Chamchamal," said Ahmed Mohammed, 18, a taxi driver "This is not the first time
that we have complained. We started more than a year ago but there is no
solution."
