Two British contractors guarding a consulate convoy died Saturday by a roadside bomb in southern Iraq. A car bomb exploded near the National Theater in Baghdad, killing seven people, including three policemen, police and witnesses said.
The blast also wounded 25, including three policemen, a mother and her two young children, they said. The children did not appear seriously hurt.
Also on Saturday, Iraqi police said the death toll from a suicide bomb attack on army volunteers in a town near the Syrian border rose to 44 from 25, as some of the wounded died overnight.
Rabiah police commander Col. Yahya al-Shammari said 57 people were injured in Friday's attack. Four of the dead bodies, one of whom was believed to be the bomber, were completely dismembered and remain unidentified, he said, according to The AP.
Elsewhere, the bodies of two Baghdad International Airport employees and their driver, kidnapped earlier this week, were discovered Saturday in a field in southwestern Baghdad, police and hospital officials said.
Mahir Yassin, director of the airport's communication department, along with fellow employee Mahmoud Hamad al-Zawbaie, and driver Mahmoud al-Zawbaie were discovered around 6:30 a.m. Saturday in the Amil neighborhood, said police Capt. Talib Thamir.
