Gunfights have erupted in two Iraqi cities, while a bomb blast in central Baghdad has killed at least eight people. Police in Baghdad say at least 28 other people, including policemen, were wounded by the roadside blast in a popular street market in the Nahda district. Earlier reports said the blast was caused by a car bomb.In Iraq's second largest city of Basra, armed gangs attacked the city council building and fought with police and British soldiers sent to help Iraqi troops guarding the building.
North of Baghdad, Iraqi police say they killed at least five insurgents in clashes in the ethnically divided city of Mosul.
And, in the Shi'ite holy city of Karbala, south of Baghdad, authorities imposed strict security measures following Tuesday's fighting between Iraqi troops and supporters of an anti-American Shi'ite cleric Mahmoud al-Hassani. The fighting began after police raided a mosque and the cleric's offices and detained many of his followers.