Attacks Aimed at Iraqi Civilians Kill 27

Explosions and gunfire killed at least 27 Iraqis and injured 133 on Monday. Much of the violence appeared to be directed at residential areas and open-air markets.

The U.S. military also announced that a soldier was killed while on patrol Saturday near Diwaniya, 80 miles south of Baghdad.

In the Baghdad Shiite Muslim neighborhood known as Sadr City, a car bomb exploded at 8:20 a.m. in a crowded market, killing five people and injuring 41.

About an hour later, another car bomb detonated in a downtown Baghdad market, killing five more Iraqis and injuring 15.

Four Iraqis were killed and 10 injured by mortar rounds fired at Abu Idsheer, another Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad.

In Balad, 45 miles north of Baghdad, two car bombs detonated five minutes and 50 yards apart, killing six Iraqis and injuring 25, including two children who were critically wounded.

At 1 p.m., a car bomb killed four people and injured 42 in the northern town of Tall Afar, the location of a highly touted U.S. counterinsurgency operation last year. An Iraqi police officer said the bomber detonated the vehicle earlier than he intended.

“The car was parking near a gas station in the middle of Tall Afar,” the officer said.

In the northern oil hub of Kirkuk, gunmen killed two Iraqi motorists along a highway.

U.S. military and Iraqi police forces in Kirkuk announced the capture of a suspected leader of an assassination ring. During a search of the suspect’s house, police found several passports and identification cards.

In the southern city of Basra, a rocket struck a house and killed a man in his garden. A witness, Tayb Khalil Saleem, 37, said the rocket probably was aimed at British forces occupying a hotel. “No night passes without the shelling of this hotel,” Saleem said.

In Amarah, 110 miles north of Basra, the governorate council announced a three-day mourning period and one-day work stoppage to protest British raids on Sunday.