Four American soldiers killed; bomb in a busy restaurant

The Iraqi police said that more than 50 persons were killed or injured in a booby trapped car explosion targeting a restaurant in the Shiite Jamilah quarters in the north east of the capital Baghdad.

The police did not define the number of killed or wounded persons, but said that 52 people were at the site of the explosion.

In Baghdad also on Monday unidentified gunmen killed Wael al-Rubei, the official responsible for the operations room at the ministry of state for national security affairs, and his driver in al-Mansour area near the Russian embassy.

A source at the Iraqi ministry of the interior said that gunmen riding two cars opened fire at the killed man and fled. Al-Qaida organization in Iraq claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on the Internet.

In another development, the American army in Iraq announced that three of its soldiers were killed on Sunday in two separate attacks in Musil city in the north of Iraq. No details were given about the two attacks. The same source announced earlier that one American soldier was killed in an attack by a booby trapped car on Sunday near Tikrit.

Three American soldiers were killed in three booby trapped car explosions targeted one American base in Samera to the north of Baghdad. News reports quoted a source in the Iraqi army as saying that two soldiers were killed by mortars fired at a base at the Iraqi army and police in Samera.

In Touz Khourmato to the south of Karkouk, five persons were killed and other 18 persons were injured in a car explosion targeted one official at the Kurdistani national union which is led by the Interim President Jalal al-Talibani.

The police said that the official was injured and his brother was killed. Also in Karkouk two Kurdish were killed and other five injured in a mortar shelling in al-Shurja quarters to the north east of the city.