Four American troops died in separate roadside bombings west of Baghdad, the US military said Sunday. Two were killed Saturday when a bomb went off near their vehicle outside Amiriyah, some 25 miles west of Baghdad. Two others also died Saturday when their vehicle struck a bomb near Taqaddum, 45 miles west of Baghdad.
Meanwhile, police dug up the bodies of 20 men bound, blindfolded and shot in the head Sunday from shallow graves east of Baghdad, Iraqi police said, according to The AP. Another eight bodies were found in two different locations inside the Iraqi capital.
Elsewhere, mortar rounds were fired at a funeral for the mother of one of Iraq's most senior police generals on Sunday, killing two people.
In another development, French journalist Florence Aubenas and her Iraqi assistant have been freed after more than five months as hostages in Iraq, the French Foreign Ministry said Sunday. Aubenas, a journalist for the left-leaning Liberation newspaper, was en route home to France, the ministry said. The reporter's Iraqi assistant, Hussein Hanoun al-Saadi, stayed with his family in Iraq. The two had been missing since January 5.
A plane carrying Aubenas took off from Baghdad airport around noon (0800 GMT), French Ambassador Bernard Bajolet told AFP
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