One Marine was killed and 14 American soldiers were wounded Saturday in Iraq. They were injured in separate attacks in the northern part of the country. One car bombing and ambush wounded eight soldiers, prompting an American warplane to drop a 500-pound bomb in Mosul.
"The commanders on the ground felt the attack was heavy enough to call in close air support," a military spokeswoman said.
The Marine was killed in western Anbar province, the military said.
Meanwhile, Police Col. Najeeb al-Joubouri was shot dead on his way to work on a road outside Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad. Gunmen also ambushed a police patrol in Baghdad's northern suburb of Azamiyah late Friday, killing a captain and a constable and wounding two others, police Lt. Mohammed al-Obeidi said.
In other violence, gunmen killed a Shiite cleric, Salim al-Yaqoubi, near his home in Baghdad, police said.
A second Shiite cleric, Sheikh Ammar al-Joubouri, was slain Friday near Mahmoudiya, about 25 miles south of Baghdad, while driving to the capital.
In northern Iraq, a suspected suicide car bomber injured two U.S. soldiers in Beiji, while two more were wounded in a car bomb blast near Kirkuk. Two more U.S. soldiers were wounded by a roadside bomb outside Hawija, near Kirkuk, the AP reported.
