A car bomb and a roadside bomb exploded simultaneously, killing eight people and wounding 45 in the Iraqi capital's eastern New Baghdad district today, police said.
It was the latest in a string of attacks in Baghdad. A car bomb killed four people and wounded 13 in the Shaab district of northern Baghdad earlier in the day, police said. Another bomb in the same area wounded seven people.
Separately, an Iraqi soldier shot dead two US soldiers and wounded six on a rampage at a joint security station in northern Iraq. Iraqi police said the soldier opened fire on the Americans at the station - one of many in which Iraqi and US troops operate side by side - in Zenjili, on the western outskirts of the city of Mosul.
"Two soldiers were killed and six wounded in a small-arms fire attack in an Iraqi Army compound in Mosul today. Initial reports indicate the attacker was an Iraqi soldier," a US military statement said.
"The Iraqi soldier was killed in the counter-attack," it added. A local morgue said it had received the body of the Iraqi soldier, riddled with bullets.
Two local police sources and an Iraqi army source, all of whom declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject, said a quarrel had broken out between the Iraqi and the US soldiers at the joint station.
Violence has fallen dramatically in Iraq in recent months, to its lowest level since the 2003 US-led invasion.
But insurgents have shown they can still carry out large-scale, devastating attacks in Baghdad and across the country.
Reuters