Tuesday, December 20, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A suicide car bomber struck a funeral ceremony Saturday evening north of Baghdad, killing at least 25 people and wounding 30 others, Iraqi police in Abu Sayda said. The funeral was for the uncle of the sheikh who leads the city council in the town of Abu Sayda, near Baquba, 30 miles north of Baghdad. The sheikh was among the wounded. The family is Shia.The attacker drove the car, packed with explosives, into the mourning tent in front of a house and detonated it as mourners were reading verses from the Quran, police said. (Watch a report on the suicide bombings -- 1:33) The attack occurred just hours after two separate car bombings in Baghdad killed 12 people and left 30 wounded Saturday, police said. The first bomb detonated about 10:30 a.m. at a market in the Diyala Bridge area of southeast Baghdad, killing 11 civilians and wounding 20, according to Iraqi emergency police.The predominantly poor Shiite area is near a bridge over the Diyala River that connects Baghdad with Diyala province. It was unclear whether the bombing was a suicide attack.A second bomb detonated about noon Saturday in the Sadoun neighborhood of central Baghdad, targeting a police patrol, Baghdad emergency police said. One civilian was killed and 10 people, including four Iraqi police officers, were wounded.Suicide bombings killed nearly 100 people Friday in Baghdad and in the eastern town of Khanaqin near the Iranian border, hospital officials said. (Full story)Five U.S. troops killedAbout 125 miles north of the capital, five U.S. soldiers were killed and five were wounded in two separate homemade bomb attacks Saturday in the vicinity of Bayji, the U.S. military said.The soldiers were with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division. The deaths bring to 2,088 the number of U.S. troops who have died in the Iraq war, according to U.S. military reports.Recent polls have shown weakening support for the U.S.-led war among Americans, while Congress has been debating continued military deployment in Iraq. The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, has submitted a plan to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, recommending that a pullout begin early next year. (Full story)The proposal comes amid the defeat late Friday night of a House vote engineered by Republicans -- and intended to fail -- calling for an immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq. (Full story)The vote on the nonbinding resolution came one day after a senior Democrat and decorated Vietnam War veteran, Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha, called on the Bush administration to bring U.S. troops home. On Saturday, President Bush, during a visit with U.S. troops at Osan Air Base in South Korea, insisted on staying the course until victory is achieved. (Full story) The White House has equated Murtha's call for withdrawal to "surrender" and Murtha, a Democratic hawk, to anti-war filmmaker Michael Moore. (Full story)Other developmentsTwo U.S. soldiers died as a result of an attack Thursday near Bayji, about 125 miles (201 km) north of Baghdad, the U.S. military announced Saturday. Originally classified as an accident, the incident involved a "deliberate attack" in which a civilian vehicle rammed the soldiers' vehicle, causing it to roll over. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called Saturday for an international investigation into detention conditions in Iraq. The discovery of more than 160 prisoners at an Iraq ministry compound revealed signs of torture.Iraqi leaders gathered Saturday in Cairo to seek a national reconciliation over ethnic and religious differences. The conference is being sponsored by the Arab League, and envoys from the United States, Europe, Iran and the United Nations are attending.CNN's Dana Bash, Arwa Damon, Enes Dulami and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.

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