Ten Suicide Attacks In Baghdad Today

Ten suicide bombs

in Iraqi capital, 25 dead

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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Ten suicide car bombers exploded in a series of apparently coordinated attacks across the Iraqi capital on Friday, killing at least 25 people and wounding more than 100, police sources said.

All appeared to target U.S. or Iraqi security forces, police said. Reuters journalists saw the aftermath of five. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for those, before police reported a further five suicide car bomb attacks late in the day.

They followed an abortive triple suicide attack on Baghdad's government compound on Thursday and a strike close to a U.S. patrol that killed 27, many of them children, a day earlier.

On Friday, the Muslim day of prayer, streets are generally quieter, which may have held down the casualty toll.

Suicide attacks, mainly believed to be orchestrated by foreign militants like al Qaeda's Iraq wing in alliance with Iraq's minority Sunni Arab insurgents, have increased sharply since a U.S.-backed, Shi'ite-led government took power in April.

U.S. generals have said the situation is improving. But the 10 suicide car bombs in Baghdad on one day alone compared to just six countrywide for the entire previous week -- a figure a U.S. spokesman had annnounced as the lowest in 11 weeks.

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