5 Iraqis, 5 U.S. Troops Killed in Bombings

A car bomb exploded south of Baghdad on Sunday, killing five civilians and wounding 10 people, as the U.S. military announced that five American soldiers had been killed in roadside bombings in the Iraqi capital.

The car bomb targeted a police vehicle as it was passing on a main road near the town of Haswa, 30 miles south of Baghdad, said police Capt. Muthanna Khaled Ali. Two policemen were among those injured.

Also Sunday, a convoy carrying several members of Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress group was ambushed south of Baghdad, leaving one person dead and three wounded, his spokesman said.

The ambush occurred in Mahawil, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, Chalabi spokesman Entifadh Qanbar said. They were heading to the Shiite holy city of Karbala, he said.

The five U.S. soldiers were killed in separate incidents Saturday. In the first attack, a patrol hit a roadside bomb in the southern Dora neighborhood, killing a soldier from Task Force Baghdad, a U.S. military statement said. Two others were wounded.

Late Saturday night, four soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb exploded in southwestern Baghdad. At least 1,794 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to Associated Press.

Marines used tanks and aircraft to battle insurgents in western Iraq after the Americans came under attack from a village schoolhouse, the U.S. military said. Eleven insurgents were killed, the military said.