BAGHDAD, Iraq – Five U.S. troops died in Iraq on Thursday as a dozen explosions rocked Baghdad and sectarian killings intensified, after a one-week lull.
The U.S. military said that casualties suffered by American-led forces fell 23 percent nationwide during the week ending Oct. 30, and that the number of deadly roadside bombings dropped to a seven-month low during the same period.
But the relatively quiet week coincided with the days-long feast that marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Attacks picked up again with the end of the holidays.
Three U.S. soldiers died when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb around 2:15 p.m., the military said. A U.S. Marine assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5 was killed in combat in Anbar province, and a U.S. soldier died in Baghdad of noncombat causes, the military said.
Iraqi civilians bore the brunt of the day’s violence. A motorcycle laden with explosives blew up in a busy Sadr City market Thursday, killing at least four people and injuring 43 in the Shiite Muslim district of the capital. A bomb in the Jadida neighborhood, also heavily Shiite, killed two and injured 25.
Meanwhile, the bodies of at least 23 Iraqi men were found in various parts of Baghdad. The victims had been bound, beaten, tortured and shot in the head at close range.
Gunmen targeted Iraqis from many walks of life. Among those killed Thursday were the dean of the University of Baghdad’s College of Administration and Economy, a former member of ousted President Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party south of Baghdad, a car parts dealer, a bus driver, a Sunni Arab cleric in the Shiite-dominated southern city of Basra and a lawyer advising the main Sunni Muslim charity.
The attorney was killed along with his two daughters when gunmen stormed his home in Hillah, south of the capital.
Three masked gunmen opened fire on a primary school in southern Baghdad, wounding the school’s principal and three students, police and hospital officials said. Gunmen attacked a bakery in west Baghdad, killing two and injuring two.
A woman was killed in southwestern Baghdad by stray gunfire, apparently from a bank guard fearful of robbers, police and hospital officials said.
Mortar rounds hit residential neighborhoods in south Baghdad and Hillah, injuring 14.
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