Ten people were killed when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden car outside the United Nations Mine Action Service offices in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, a police official said.

Two separate blasts killed five people and wounded nearly three dozen today, officials said, in the latest reminder of the violence and instability in the country as US troops prepare to leave.

A series of car bombs targeted American and Iraqi troops in separate areas of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, a day after security forces captured a would-be suicide bomber near the entrance to the heavily guarded Green Zone. Scattered mortar fire shook two north Baghdad districts.

US Marines battled rebels in Fallujah today in heavy fighting that erupted as the first residents were returning to the devastated city.