Car bomb targets police patrol in Baghdad

A car bomb exploded in eastern Baghdad targeting an Iraqi police patrol today, wounding at least one policeman and another civilian, police said.

The bomb detonated near Tahrir Square in Baghdad’s Wahda neighbourhood said police Major Qusai Ibrahim.

The attack came shortly before today’s resumption of the Saddam Hussein trial after a one-month break, but it was unclear if the bombing was timed to coincide with the trial.

A roadside bomb blast targeted another police patrol near the northern city of Kirkuk, missing the policemen but killed one civilian and wounded four others, said police Captain Firhad Talabani.

Gunmen killed an official with the Kurdistan Democratic Party as he was driving to work yesterday east of Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, said party spokesman Abdul Ghani Yahya today.

Iraq’s raging insurgency is fuelled in by various groups, including members of Saddam’s former ruling Baath Party.

Saddam and seven co-defendants will face accusations of involvement in the 1982 killings of more than 140 Shiite Muslims in Dujail.

On Monday a roadside bomb killed two US soldiers in Baghdad and two Marines died in a vehicle accident in western Iraq, the military has said.

One of the Multi-National Division Baghdad soldiers was killed at the scene while the other died en route to a hospital.

The Marines died in a non-hostile vehicle accident near Taqaddum, about 45 miles west of Baghdad.