A suicide bomber detonated explosives Sunday inside a northern Iraqi cafe popular with Shiites, killing 25 people and wounding 23, an Iraqi general said.
The attack occurred just after sunset at a cafe in the outdoor market in Tuz Khormato, a mostly Turkomen city 130 miles north of Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Anwar Mohammed Amin said.
Earlier, one British soldier died and another injured during an operation to seize a suspected "terrorist" in Iraq's southern city of Basra early on Sunday, the British military said.
According to Reuters, military spokesman Major Charlie Burbridge said two British troops were injured when they came under small arms fire. They were evacuated to hospital where one later died.
A second British military spokesman, Captain Tane Dunlop, said the operation in northern Basra had started late on Saturday and continued into Sunday morning.
Meanwhile, gunmen kidnapped the chairman of Iraq's Olympic committee and at least 30 others Saturday in a brazen daylight raid on a sports conference in the heart of Baghdad. Armed clashes erupted elsewhere across the capital.
At about 1:30 p.m., gunmen in about dozen vehicles pulled up outside the meeting of the Iraqi National Olympic Committee, police and witnesses said. They entered the conference center, blindfolded and handcuffed participants and bodyguards, hustled them into the vehicles, and sped away.
Those kidnapped included Ahmed al-Hijiya, chairman of the Olympic Committee, and the presidents of the tae kwon do and boxing federations, according to police Lt. Thaer Mahmoud, speaking to the AP. The bodies of two of the bodyguards were found later, dumped along a street.
