Security Summary: March 21, 2007

Children enjoy a ride at amusement park during celebrations for the new year festival of Nowrouz in Basra

MOSUL - Five people were killed and 40 were wounded when a suicide bomber blew up his truck at the headquarters of a Kurdish party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, in the northern city of Mosul on Wednesday during the celebration of the spring festival of Nawruz, police said.

KUT - Police said they found on Wednesday the bodies of three Shi'ite Mehdi Army militia members who were kidnapped three days ago near Kut, 170 km (105 miles) southeast Baghdad.

MADAEN - A mortar explosion killed three people and wounded 10 in Madaen, 45 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

DIWANIYA - The bodies of two police commandos were found with gunshot wounds in the southern city of Diwaniya, 180 km (110 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol wounded two policemen in eastern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Iraqi security forces detonated a truck loaded with explosives in northern Baghdad, police said. The controlled explosion wounded 12 people, including policemen and soldiers.

BAGHDAD - The bodies of 32 people were found shot dead on Tuesday in different districts of Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL - Police said that they found the bodies of seven people shot dead on Tuesday in different districts of the northern city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad.

BAGHDAD - U.S. forces destroyed a weapons cache and detained 23 suspected insurgents during raids in Balad, Taji, Mosul and Baghdad, targeting foreign fighter facilitators and al Qaeda militants, the U.S. military said.

TAJI - U.S. forces killed five insurgents, detained three others and destroyed a bomb-making factory in an operation near Taji, 20 km (9 miles) north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. It was not clear if they were referring to the same statement they issued earlier about a raid in Taji. NEAR FALLUJA - Clashes erupted between Iraqi police and U.S. Marines and groups of al-Qaeda fighters on Tuesday near the Sunni stronghold of Falluja, 50 km (35 miles) west of Baghdad. It ended with the killing of eight of the gunmen, the U.S. military said. A senior Iraqi provincial official on Tuesday put the death toll at 39, including eight policemen.

DIWANIYA - A policeman was killed and eight wounded, including four civilians, when clashes erupted between police and gunmen on Tuesday in several districts of Diwaniya, 180 km (110 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Bahaa al-Araji, a member of parliament and senior member of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's movement, said U.S. forces staged an overnight raid on his office in northern Baghdad's Kadhimiya district. Araji said they seized a pistol, rifle and a computer memory card.

FALLUJA - Gunmen killed a former army brigadier and a friend in a drive-by shooting in the city of Falluja, 50 km (35 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

DIWANIYA - Police said they found the body of a man, shot in the head and bound, on Tuesday in Diwaniya.

BAGHDAD - Gunmen killed police captain Hussein Abdullah on Tuesday in the western Baghdad district of Mansour, police said.

BAGHDAD - A mortar round landed in a residential district and wounded two people on Tuesday, police said.

BAGHAD - Two roadside bombs in Palestine Street in central Baghdad wounded four people, including one policeman, police said.

From Reuters/Alternet