Insurgents killed at least seven people, including three Iraqi soldiers, on Sunday as former dictator Saddam Hussein was buried in his home village a day after his execution, security officials said.A group of gunmen in vehicles attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint in Hawijah, west of Kirkuk, killing three soldiers and wounding another two, local police Capt Atallah Mahmud said. Four more people were killed in several attacks in Baghdad.
Two were killed and another two wounded when apparent Sunni extremists fired a Katyusha rocket in the capitalÂ’s northwest Shia district of Kadhimiyah where Saddam was hanged on Saturday at a former torture cell. Another Iraqi was killed and six others wounded in a car bomb attack in the northern neighbourhood of Hurriyah, a day after 37 people died in a triple car bomb attack in the same area.
In yet another attack, one person was killed and five wounded in a car bomb explosion in the Shawaqha neighbourhood of downtown Baghdad.
Iraqi forces backed by US troops detained 20 people in raids against insurgents suspected of manufacturing or planting bombs, the US military said on Sunday.
In one raid Saturday near Habaniyah, 80 kilometres west of Baghdad, troops captured 15 people suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda in Iraq, the military said. They were believed to have been involved in roadside bomb and small arms attacks against convoys in the Habaniyah and Fallujah area, the military said in a statement. Another five people were detained on Saturday in Fallujah, 65 kilometres west of Baghdad, another statement said. US and Iraqi troops were searching for a suspect believed to be selling bombs to other insurgents and to Al Qaeda in Iraq, as well as smuggling foreign fighters into the country, it said. No Iraqi or US deaths resulted from the raids.