Bloody Beginning Of The Week In Baghdad

It is turning into a very bloody beginning to the week in Iraq as bombers struck four times in Baghdad and at three locations north of the capital Monday with explosions aimed at an array of targets: a U.S. military foot patrol, a hotel in the typically safe Kurdish region, a police station, and civilians near a hospital and a mosque, authorities and witnesses said.

With a combined death toll of at least 16— including five American service members— none of the seven blasts was as powerful as the twin bombings that killed 68 people last Thursday in a Baghdad shopping district. It wasn't clear whether any of Monday's bombers acted in coordination.

Still, Iraqi officials interpreted the wave of attacks as Sunni Muslim insurgents reasserting their presence at a time when violence had dipped to record lows and families were tentatively venturing out of their walled-off neighborhoods.

Two of the explosions occurred in militia-controlled Shiite Muslim districts, signaling that bombers still can strike in the heart of Mahdi Army territory. Another blast ripped through a hotel in the cultural hub of Sulaimaniyah in the autonomous northern Kurdish region, which is typically among the safest places in Iraq .

In central Baghdad , five U.S. troops died after an apparent suicide bomber wearing an explosives vest approached an American patrol in the once-upscale neighborhood of Mansour, according to the U.S. command in Baghdad .

Four of the soldiers were killed at the scene and another died later from his wounds, the military said in a statement. Another three U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were wounded. Iraqi police say that an Iraqi civilian also was killed.

More updates as they become available!!