Nearby, in the village of Mahaweel, a car bomb exploded near a roadblock manned by Iraqi police and soldiers. The Reuters news agency reported four people were killed and 19 wounded.
In Baqubah, an insurgent hot spot 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, authorities found the headless body of a man who had worked as a translator for the U.S. Army, according to Ahmed Foad, a physician at the local hospital.
Villagers in Aaytha, near Mosul, gather around the remains of a house the U.S. military said it mistakenly bombed.
(AP)
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The wave of attacks came as Iraq's interim government and the U.S. forces that support it issued a flurry of statements announcing the capture of men described as insurgent leaders. Most of the arrests occurred weeks or months ago.
The government said it captured a former commander in the Iraqi Republican Guard, Hamid Ismail Darwish, 51, in late October. An insurgent leader named Mohammed Fanjo was captured in December after trying to hijack a truck, according to a government statement that said "the one-armed man" had specialized in intimidation. And Iaa Aldin Majid, a second cousin and former bodyguard to Saddam Hussein, was captured in Fallujah in early December. The government said Majid funded insurgents and directed attacks on oil pipelines and electric installations.
The U.S. military said it captured Abdul Aziz Sadun Ahmed Hamduni, described as a senior official in Zarqawi's group in Mosul, on Dec. 23.
Yet another alleged insurgent leader appeared on a videotape that Iraq's interim defense minister played at a news conference in Baghdad. On the tape, Mouayed Yaseen Aziz Abdul Razzaq Nasiri called himself the commander of a radical group known as Mohammed's Army and offered support for the defense minister's frequent claims that Iran is funding the insurgency. Nasiri said his group was "provided $1 million and two cars loaded with weapons" when its representatives traveled to Iran this spring.
No other evidence was offered. Mohammed's Army is widely understood to be headed by Abdullah Janabi, a radical Muslim cleric, and its guerrilla forces commanded by a former Republican Guard general known as Abu Jalal.
Some residents of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, have blamed Janabi for the destruction of their homes during the U.S. offensive to retake the city in November, saying members of his group were among those holed up in the city. Witnesses said four refugees from the city fired on Janabi's car on Saturday afternoon when it pulled up outside a grocery in Amiriyah, a village outside Fallujah. The car sped away, said Sabah Muneer, a pharmacist who said he witnessed the incident.
Special correspondents Salih Saif Aldin in Tikrit, Hassan Shammari in Baqubah and Bassam Sebti in Baghdad contributed to this report.
