Iraq car bombings kill scores

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Bombings and shootings killed more than 70 people in Iraq on Tuesday, including 20 Iraqi troops, a U.S. soldier and a British soldier.

The American soldier, who was assigned to the 1st Armored Division, died “due to enemy action” in Anbar province west of Baghdad, the U.S. command said. In a separate statement, the military said a U.S. soldier from the 16th Corps Support Group died the day before in a roadside bombing south of the capital.

In further violence, officials confirmed that about 45 Shiite Muslims were kidnapped over the last two weeks on the main highway to Syria and Jordan. The highway passes through Sunni insurgent strongholds west of Baghdad.

The deadliest attack Tuesday occurred when a roadside bomb devastated a bus packed with Iraqi soldiers near Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad. All 24 people aboard were killed, a Defense Ministry spokesman said. All but four of the dead were Iraqi soldiers, police said.

In Baghdad, 14 people died and 37 were wounded when a car bomb exploded at a bank where police and soldiers were picking up monthly paychecks, police Lt. Col. Abbas Mohammed Salman said.

The blast set several other cars ablaze and scattered dismembered bodies along the street as bystanders carried the injured to ambulances.

In the southern city of Najaf, Gov. Assad Abu Kilal said 45 people from his province had disappeared while traveling by bus through the Sunni-dominated area west of Baghdad. He demanded the government stop the kidnappings or he would send his own forces to protect the road.

Late Tuesday, an Internet statement by the al-Qaida-affiliated Mujahedeen Shura Council claimed “the resistance” captured 37 Najaf policemen Monday near Ramadi as they returned from a training course in Jordan. It was unclear if they were from the group cited by the Najaf governor.

Associated Press

Iraqis wounded by a car bomb are brought to a local hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday morning.