20 Iraqis, GI Killed in Spate of Attacks Across Baghdad

BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber Thursday attacked a minibus in the Iraqi capital, killing at least nine people and wounding nine others, police Capt. Abbas Ali said.

It was the worst of several attacks that left 20 Iraqis and a U.S. soldier dead.

The bomber set off his explosives aboard the minibus as it passed a police patrol, Ali said.

The U.S. soldier was killed in a roadside bombing in northern Baghdad, and a U.S. patrol in a central neighborhood was hit by car bomb, leaving four Americans wounded, the military said.

At least 1,948 U.S. troops have died since March 2003.

A Marine patrol in Haditha was hit by a roadside bomb, but no one was seriously injured. Wires led to a nearby mosque, where three men were detained.

The violence came amid distribution of copies of Iraq’s draft constitution. Some residents refused to take them, and some shopkeepers would not pass them out, fearing reprisals by militants opposed to the Oct. 15 referendum on the document.