Al-Jazeera airs tape of 3 hostages in Iraq
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-07 19:05

Many of Monday's attacks targeted the country's Shiite-led security forces, accused by Sunni Arabs of repeated abuses against them under the cover of fighting the Sunni-driven insurgency. The government denies the accusations.

In Baqouba, a car bomb targeting an Iraqi police patrol exploded near the mayor's office and a market, killing six people and wounding 23, including four patrolmen, police said. Piles of charred, twisted wreckage and pools of blood marked the site.

Elsewhere, two bombs went off in Baghdad's notorious southern Dora neighborhood. One targeted an Interior Ministry patrol, killing six Iraqis. A second exploded as a U.S. patrol was passing, wounding five policemen who were guarding a bank and two civilians.

A U.S. soldier was also killed Sunday in insurgency-plagued western Anbar province, the military announced, bringing to 2,300 the number of U.S. service members who have died in Iraq since the war began three years ago, according to an Associated Press count.

Al-Dulaimi, the Sunni in charge patrolling Baghdad with his 6th army division, was killed when gunmen fired at his convoy.

The U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey, sent condolences to "his family, tribe, and the Iraqi Army during this tragic loss."

"This tragic incident will neither impede the 6th Iraqi Army Division from continuing its mission of securing Baghdad nor derail the formation of the government of Iraq," Casey said in a statement.