U.S. soldier, 2 civilians killed in Iraq's violence

A U.S. military statement said that one of its soldiers was killed in a bomb explosion near his vehicle on Wednesday in Diyala.

The latest death brings the number of U.S. soldiers who have been killed in Iraq to about 4,413, since the breakout of the U.S.- led war on Iraq in 2003, according to media account based on Pentagon figures.

On Thursday, a civilian was killed when unidentified gunmen opened fire on a police patrol in the Ghazi Street in central Nineveh's capital city Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, a source from Nineveh's operation command told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

A policeman and a female bystander were also wounded by the attack, the source said.

In a separate incident, Sheikh Fathi al-Nu'aimy, a cleric of a Sunni mosque was shot dead by gunmen in front of his house in the Zanjily neighborhood in western Mosul, the source said.

In the afternoon, a roadside bomb struck an Iraqi army patrol in the al-Zuhour neighborhood in northeastern Mosul, damaging a military Hummer vehicle and wounding two soldiers aboard, the source added.

In Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua that two Katyusha rockets hit the heavily fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad in the afternoon. No further details were given.

The Green Zone, which houses some of the Iraqi government offices and the U.S. embassy, has been frequently targeted by insurgents' mortar and rocket attacks. The roughly 10-square- kilometer zone is located on the west bank of the Tigris River which bisects the Iraqi capital.

Sporadic attacks are still common in the Iraqi cities more than four months after the country held its landmark parliamentary election which is widely expected to shape the political landscape of the war-torn country, Kazinform cites Xinhua. See www.xinhuanet.com