Seven killed as bombs, gunfire and shells hit Baghdad

At least seven people were reported killed and 11 injured today in scattered bombings, mortar and gun fire in Iraq’s beleaguered capital, police said.

A roadside bomb targeting a US patrol in Baghdad’s western Khadhra neighbourhood killed one civilian bystander and injured another, police Lieutenant Maitham Abdul-Razzaq said. There were no reports of American casualties.

A car bomb missed another US patrol in the mostly Shiite Zafaraniyah neighbourhood in south-eastern Baghdad, wounding at least four civilian bystanders, police Lieutenant Ahmad Adab said at the scene.

Unidentified assailants attacked the Sunni al-Imam al-Adham mosque in the western Ghazaliyah neighbourhood with guns and grenades, killing a guard and torching two rooms, police Captain Qassim Hussein said.

When police responded, gunmen ambushed them. Five policemen were wounded in the exchange, Hussein said.

In the same neighbourhood, a mortar shell injured a worshipper as he emerged from a Shiite mosque after dawn prayers – one of several rounds that slammed into the city this morning.

Gunmen shot and killed a Baghdad International Airport employee as he drove through the southern Saydiyah neighbourhood, police Lieutenant Maitham Abdul-Razzaq said. The motive for the attack was not immediately clear.

Police found four more bodies, two of them with their eyes gouged out, dumped in parts of the city.