Security Summary: May 20, 2007

Above: A Chaldean church in Baghdad where a priest was abducted by gunmen during services today.

BAGHDAD - Six U.S. soldiers and an interpreter were killed by a roadside bomb in western Baghdad on Saturday, the U.S. military said on Sunday.

BAGHDAD - Iraqi security forces found 24 bodies around Baghdad in the past 24 hours, police said.

BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomb targeting an Iraqi army checkpoint killed one civilian and wounded two policemen in the al-Shurta district of southwestern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomb targeting Iraqi army checkpoint killed one civilian and wounded four, including two policemen, in Adil district of western Baghdad, police said.

FALLUJA - Gunmen killed Iyad al-Alwani, a senior member in the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party near his home in central Falluja, 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

DIWANIYA - One U.S. soldier was killed and two others were wounded after a roadside bomb hit their vehicle near Diwaniya, south of Baghdad, on Saturday, the U.S. military said.

BAGHDAD - U.S. troops killed eight insurgents and detained 34 people during operations on Sunday against al Qaeda in Baghdad and in western Iraq, the U.S. military said. Six were killed in an airstrike near Garma, in Anbar province, while two were killed southwest of Baghdad.

KUT - Clashes between Shi'ite militiamen and Iraqi, U.S. security forces left two militiamen dead and four others wounded in the southern Iraqi city of Kut, police said.

TIKRIT - The bodies of nine people who had been shot were delivered to a hospital in Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Gunmen killed Hadi al-Rubaie, a senior figure of the Iraqi National Accord political movement headed by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, on Friday in Baghdad, his party said on Sunday.

NEAR RAMADI - A suicide truck bomb laden with chlorine gas exploded before it rammed into a police checkpoint in a town near the city of Ramadi, killing one person and making 11 people sick, a local official said.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed two people and wounded 10 others in a parking lot in the commercial district of Bab al-Sharji in central Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb wounded four people in Ur district of northeastern Baghdad, police said.

NEAR KUT - Police retrieved the bodies of five people, including one that was decapitated, from the Tigris River near the city of Kut, 170 km (100 miles) southeast of Baghdad, police said.

BASRA - Two roadside bombs exploded near a British patrol in two different districts in northern Basra, wounding a number of British forces, the British military said, adding their wounds were not life-threatening. Four people were detained in the operation.

BAGHDAD - The bodies of 20 people were found shot in different districts of Baghdad on Saturday, police said.

MOSUL - The bodies of four people, including a decapitated man, were found in different districts of Mosul on Saturday, police said.

BAGHDAD - Four people were killed and eight were wounded when a car bomb exploded near a busy market in al-Shurta al-Rabiae in southwestern Baghdad on Saturday, police said.

SULAIMANIYA - A roadside bomb wounded two people in a town near the northern Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya on Saturday, police said.

DIWANIYA - The final death toll from clashes between Mehdi army militias loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and U.S. and Iraqi forces on Saturday in the southern city of Diwaniya was six people, including three security forces, a hospital source said.

BAGHDAD - Mortar rounds wounded two civilians when they landed on and near the small Bahaa hotel in central Baghdad, police said.

From Reuters/Alternet