American occupation soldiers launched new raids Thursday around the northern city of Mosul. Iraqi forces sealed off main routes into Baghdad a day after a wave of car bombings rocked the Iraqi capital.
US troops nabbed nine people and seized weapons in the overnight sweeps in Mosul, the military said Thursday.
Also in northern Iraq, a Brazilian citizen was reported missing after gunmen fired on his car in a highway ambush Wednesday that killed a British contract security worker and an Iraqi guard, Iraqi police Lt. Shaalan Allawi said, according to The AP. Earlier, Iraqi police had said the missing foreigner was a Japanese engineer, but later said he was from Brazil.
Meanwhile, five Iraqi soldiers and a civilian were killed in a string of attacks north of Baghdad. Four soldiers died in a roadside bomb attack in the city of Samarra. Two soldiers were killed Wednesday in similar circumstances near Samarra, police said Thursday, according to <i>AFP</I>.
An Iraqi soldier was killed and another wounded Thursday in a mortar attack on a military position in Siniya, west of the city of Baiji, said Captain Ali Yusef.
And a civilian was killed and three others were injured, including a four-year-old girl, when Iraqi soldiers opened fire on them near Tikrit, police said.
