BUSES BOMBED: A car bomb exploded Thursday at a bus station in a mostly Shiite west Baghdad neighborhood, killing 22 people. In addition, more than 50 people were wounded in the rush-hour blast in the Baiyaa neighborhood, police said. A huge fireball incinerated about 40 mini-buses as people were lining up to catch rides to work, police and survivors said. In all, at least 51 people were killed or found dead across Iraq.
BODIES FOUND: Villagers in Um al-Abeed reported finding 20 beheaded bodies, according to two police officers from separate commands. The Sunni village is near the city of Salman Pak, 15 miles southeast of the capital. Residents said that the victims were all men ages 20 to 40 and that their hands and legs had been bound, the officers said on condition of anonymity. Another police officer in eastern Baghdad said officials had heard the report and tried to send a force to confirm it but the mission was called off because the area was too dangerous.
U.S. DEATH: One American soldier was killed Thursday and another was wounded by a roadside bomb during a combat patrol in eastern Baghdad, the U.S. military said. At least 3,570 members of the U.S. military have died in Iraq since the beginning of the war in 2003, according to an Associated Press count, and 101 have died in June, according to the Web site icasualties.org.
MARCH IS ON: Powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr vowed to go ahead with a planned march July 5 to the devastated Askariya shrine in Samarra. Sadr, head of the Mahdi Army militia, said the goal is to unite Sunnis and Shiites against the Americans and Sunni extremists responsible for attacks against civilians. But the government and Sunni organizations have urged Sadr to cancel the march, fearing sectarian attacks.
