10 killed in Baghdad car lot bombing

Story Highlights

• NEW: 10 killed, 17 wounded in car lot bombing in Baghdad's Sadr City
• NEW: 14 Iraqi police officers who went missing Thursday found in Baquba
• NEW: Car bomb exploded near police patrol in southwestern Baghdad
• Iraqi forces team with tribal leaders to battle militants, official says

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A bomb exploded at a popular used-car lot in Baghdad's Sadr City Friday, killing 10 people and wounding 17, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said.

The blast at the Habibiya car lot occurred just after 4 p.m.

Meanwhile, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official told CNN the bodies of 14 Iraqi police officers who went missing Thursday were found Friday in Baquba, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of Baghdad.

And an official with Baghdad police told CNN that a car bomb exploded near an Iraqi National Police patrol in the Saydiya neighborhood in southwestern Baghdad, killing one police officer and wounding two. That blast also occurred around 4 p.m. Friday.

Elsewhere Friday, two American soldiers and an interpreter died and a third U.S. soldier was wounded when a roadside bomb exploded northwest of the capital, the military said.

The soldiers, from Multi-National Division-Baghdad, were on a routine route-clearance patrol northwest of the capital -- to assess the safety of the road -- when the incident occurred.

The military said soldiers from that division have found 173 weapons caches and 372 improvised explosive devices in the last 30 days.

Thursday night, Iraqi security forces discovered six bullet-riddled bodies in Yathrib village, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) north of Baghdad, an official with Tikrit police told CNN on Friday. Security forces could not immediately identify the bodies.

Earlier, 80 militants were killed and 50 were captured in fighting between Iraqi security forces and militants in Anbar province, the violent area west of Baghdad, the Interior Ministry said.

Iraqi police and soldiers, along with tribal leaders, battled al Qaeda in Iraq fighters in the Amriyat al-Falluja village, a ministry spokesman said.

A police official in the area, Ahmed al-Falluji, told Reuters news agency that 70 militants died in the fighting, and said three police officers also were killed. The statement from the Interior Ministry gave no information on casualties to Iraqi security forces or police.

The fighting started Wednesday afternoon when dozens of militants attacked the village, about 12 miles (19 kilometers) south of Falluja, where local tribes have taken an anti-al Qaeda stance.

Reuters said residents fled the village when the attack began and asked Iraqi security forces for help. Fighting lasted through Wednesday evening.

Three foreign fighters were among those captured.

American troops were not involved, a U.S. military spokesman in Falluja told Reuters.

Other developments

In Falluja, five people died Thursday when a parked car bomb targeted a convoy of guests traveling to a wedding party for an Iraqi police officer, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. Ten people were injured.

In Tikrit, north of Baghdad, gunmen shot and killed four Shiite students in a private car leaving Tikrit University, police said.

In Baghdad, a roadside bomb exploded Thursday near a minibus filled with City Council officials in the eastern part of the capital, killing one official and wounding four others, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said. The minibus had no markings to indicate it was carrying government officials.

In the northern city of Mosul, a roadside bomb took aim at a police official's convoy and killed one of his guards, Mosul police said. Gen. Wathiq al-Hamadani, Nineveh's police chief, was in the convoy but escaped injury.