A car bomb in a crowded market in downtown Baqubah, a religiously mixed provincial capital about 35 miles northeast of the capital, killed at least six people, including two children, and injured 21. The bomb exploded as police and passersby gathered near the scene of a slaying, one of three fatal shootings reported in Baqubah.
Gunmen killed three Shiite laborers in the Sunni town of Hawija, near the northern city of Kirkuk. A roadside bomb targeting a U.S. patrol in Mosul killed an Iraqi civilian.
At least two car bombs and sporadic mortar fire shook the capital. A car bomb near a bank killed one person and injured five in the Dora district.
A car bomb on the road to the Industry Ministry injured five. Another car bomb struck a police commando patrol in the Mustansiriya district, though there were no reports of injuries.
Yarmouk Hospital officials reported receiving at least three unidentified corpses from Sunni neighborhoods.
Gunmen kidnapped a prominent university professor. Ali Hussein Khafaji, dean of the engineering college at Mustansiriya University, was taken by two carloads of men as he left home.
Times staff writers Mark Mazzetti in Washington and Suhail Ahmad in Baghdad and special correspondents in Baqubah, Kirkuk and Mosul contributed to this report.
