At least 26 people were killed in a string of attacks in Iraq on Wednesday, including a dozen people who lost their lives in a rushhour bombing in Baghdad and two US troops slain by an Iraqi comrade. In the deadliest single attack of the day, a booby-trapped car exploded, followed by another bomb blast at a bus station in the working class district of Baghdad al-Jadida in the east of the capital.
At least 12 people were killed and 60 wounded, an interior ministry official said. In the northern city of Mosul, an Iraqi soldier on joint patrol with US troops opened fire on his American comrades, killing two, the ministry said.
"During a patrol with the Iraqi army, an Iraqi soldier opened fire on the American soldiers at around 1300 hours (1000 GMT), killing two of them and wounding others," a ministry statement said. A ministry source said a US soldier "slapped an Iraqi soldier during the patrol and he opened fire in response." US military spokeswoman Major Margaret Kageleiry said of the incident: "Two US soldiers have been killed today in Mosul. I can't make further comment."
Two Christian sisters were also slain by gunmen who broke into their home in Mosul - which the US military considers one of the last bastions of al Qaeda in Iraq - and wired it with bombs. Another 10 people were killed in a string of bombings in Baghdad, which has seen near-daily attacks in recent days despite an overall improvement in security over the past year.
On Monday 28 people were killed and dozens wounded in a triple attack in a market in the Sunni district of Adhamiyah, the bloodiest since June. In Mosul, the intruders killed sisters Lamia and Walaa Sabih and wounded their mother before booby-trapping the house. When police arrived a bomb went off, wounding two of them, an officer said on condition of anonymity.
The US military said in a statement that five bombs were placed in the home and two exploded. The two women - one of whom was the mother of three children - both worked for the provincial council, which released a statement condemning the attack.
More than 2,000 Christian families fled Mosul in October after a wave of killings in the city. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Tuesday that some Christians were starting to return, with around a third of the families in one neighbourhood having come back to their homes.
Since the US-led invasion of 2003, more than 200 Iraqi Christians have been killed across Iraq and a string of churches attacked, with the violence intensifying in recent months, particularly in the north. Around 800,000 Christians lived in Iraq at the time of the invasion, but the number has since shrunk by a significant proportion as members of the minority community have fled.
Another three car bombs also struck the Iraqi capital on Wednesday. Four people were killed, including two policemen, and another 14 wounded when a bomb went off in a parking lot near Saadun Street, a main thoroughfare running through the heart of Baghdad.
Another car bomb went off later in a residential neighbourhood in north-east Baghdad, killing two people and wounding another 10, police said. A third car bomb exploded near a bus station in the south-east of the city, killing at least four people and wounding six others. Baghdad has seen a string of attacks in recent days, most of them targeting Iraqi security forces, which are heavily deployed throughout the capital.
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