A suicide car bomb exploded outside an Iraqi army recruitment center yesterday, killing two Iraqi soldiers and a civilian, and wounding 20 people, police said.
The blast occurred in the Azamiaya section of the capital about 18m from the front gate of the center, said police Colonel Rashid Ibrahim.
All the victims appeared to be Iraqis, another police official said.
One of the main goals of the US-led coalition in Iraq has been to train Iraqi security forces to replace US soldiers in the field, and insurgents often target centers where such security forces are being recruited and instructed.
Two other Iraqi civilians died in other attacks yesterday.
In Baghdad, masked men armed with machine guns and traveling in two cars in the capital shot and killed Professor Fuad Ibrahim Mohamed Al-Bayati as he left his home for work at the University of Baghdad. A roadside car bomb that exploded 48km south of the capital killed one man, police said.
In Baqubah a roadside bomb missed a US military convoy but wounded three nearby civilians, police said.
Late Monday night, gunmen ambushed a senior Defense Ministry adviser, Major General Adnan al-Qaraghulli, as he drove home in Baghdad, killing him and his son, the Interior Ministry said.
Elsewhere, Iraqi security forces began scaling back their search operation in Madain, a town south of Baghdad in Iraq's "Triangle of Death," where reports that Sunni militants had taken up to 100 Shiites hostage turned out to be false.
The reports had startled the entire nation, including the country's new National Assembly, raising fears that such a crisis could set off Sunni-Shiite fighting in Iraq.
In Baghdad, the assembly delayed its planned meeting yesterday morning to protest the alleged detention and beating of an Iraqi legislator by US forces at a checkpoint outside the heavily fortified Green Zone where parliament meets.
The alleged beating occurred when Fattah al-Sheik, whose small party has been linked to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, showed his identity card at the checkpoint and was asked to get out of his car, said legislator Tourkit al-Ta'i.
US forces said they had heard of the incident and were investigating it.
The search of Madain by hundreds Iraqi security forces was launched Monday to root out Sunni insurgents in Madain. They found weapons and car bombs but no hostages.
Yesterday, shops began to reopen in the agricultural town of about 1,000 families, far fewer security forces were seen on patrol, and the ones who had been guarding rooftoops were removed. However, Madain remained surrounded by the Iraqi forces, who continued to search all vehicles leaving or entering it.
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