7 U.S. soldiers killed in roadway blasts in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Seven U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq over the past three days, the military said Saturday, as violence in the capital and elsewhere continued to surge.

Three were killed Saturday north of Baghdad when an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated near their vehicle, the military said.

A Task Force Lightning soldier assigned to the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division was killed Friday in Diyala province in eastern Iraq when an IED struck his vehicle, a military statement said. Another was killed Friday in Diyala when his unit came under attack, the military said.

The military also announced that two soldiers were killed Thursday in eastern Baghdad when their vehicle struck an IED.

The soldiers' names were withheld pending notification of their relatives, officials said.

The deaths brought the total number of U.S. military personnel killed in the war to at least 3,079, according to an Associated Press count.

Iraqi civilians also were targeted in the violence.

Two suicide bombers drove into a market in the New Baghdad neighborhood of the capital and simultaneously detonated explosives in their vehicles, said Maj. Kassim Abdul Karim of the Iraqi Ministry of Interior. At least 13 people were killed in the attack, the latest in a string of bombings this week in areas where Shiite Muslims congregate.

Authorities suspect many such bombers are young men from other countries in the Sunni Arab world heeding religious calls to fight against the U.S. military and Iraq's Shiite rule. Iraqi army soldiers at a checkpoint in southern Baghdad detained four Arab nationals on Saturday in a car containing suicide belts. Authorities declined to disclose their exact nationalities.

More than 45 bodies were found in Baghdad during the past 48 hours, said Brig. Salim Muhsin, another Interior Ministry spokesman.

Also Saturday, armed men wearing what appeared to be Iraqi police uniforms and driving vehicles that looked like police cars raided a computer store in the Sinaa sector of the capital. The gunmen kidnapped eight employees and stole several computers, the ministry spokesman said.

"How can we work or live like this?" asked Zaid Sadiq, a merchant who works near the raided store. "They looked exactly like police, how we can resist them? They were in police uniforms, and who's to say that they are not police?"

Meanwhile, a prominent politician in the western city of Ramadi was kidnapped and killed, according to a physician at Ramadi Hospital. Saied Hussein al-Alwani, a council member, was abducted by suspected members of al-Qaida in Iraq and his body was discarded on a road an hour later, said Mahmood al-Ani, the physician.

Al-Ani said the politician was killed because he had been "accused of helping the American forces."

In Baghdad, two rockets fired into the fortified Green Zone at 4 p.m. slightly injured two people, a U.S. Embassy spokesman said.