Bombings

The search for a bicyclist who bombed the Times Square military recruiting office expanded quickly Thursday as the probe's focus turned to photos of the attack site that were sent to Capitol Hill and possible connections to previous attacks on two consulate buildings in the city. The early morning bombing at perhaps the armed forces' most visible presence in the nation's largest city rattled windows and nerves but caused little damage.

Four U.S. soldiers were killed when a bomb hit their vehicle in south Baghdad late Sunday, bringing the number of U.S. service members killed in the Iraq war to 4,000. The grim milestone came at a time when attacks against the U.S. military are ebbing and officials have claimed significant progress against Iraq's deadly insurgency and sectarian violence. It was reached about 10 p.m. on a day when more than 60 Iraqis were killed and dozens injured in attacks in Baghdad and north of the capital.

A convicted hotel bomber from California who modeled himself on a fictional vampire has died after becoming ill in prison, officials said Tuesday. Triston Jay Amero, 26, was serving a 30-year sentence for the 2006 bombing of two low-rent hotels in this capital city. Two Bolivians died in one of the attacks. Juan Carlos Limpias, a senior official in the national prison service, said Amero complained of stomach pains Monday night and was taken to a hospital, where he died.

Bombs in two provincial capitals killed more than 50 Iraqi civilians Tuesday, underscoring the continuing threat posed by Sunni Muslim insurgents as they try to regain power in former strongholds. Coinciding with military efforts to curb the strength of Shiite Muslim militias in Baghdad and southern Iraq, the new attacks also portend the hurdles the Iraqi government may face as U.S. troop levels decrease through the summer.

A car bombing that killed at least six people and wounded dozens of others Monday near the Danish Embassy raised fears that Al Qaeda-linked militants might be moving to fill a void left by other Islamist fighters seeking truces with Pakistan's new government. The powerful blast occurred just outside the embassy gates in a leafy, upscale neighborhood of Islamabad, the capital.

A bomb planted near a bridge in north Baghdad killed five people on passing minibuses during rush hour Wednesday, Iraqi police said. A woman and a 7-year-old boy were among the dead, and at least 10 people were wounded in the mostly Shiite Muslim neighborhood of Hurriya, an officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns. Across town, two mortar rounds hit a busy street in the central district of Karada, killing a civilian and wounding five, police said.

Several bombings and attacks by gunmen Wednesday killed 20 Iraqis and a U.S. soldier, officials said. A suicide car bomber killed eight civilians and wounded 41 in an attack on a military convoy carrying a senior Iraqi commander in the northern city of Mosul, the Iraqi military said. In the former Sunni Arab insurgent stronghold of Fallouja, west of Baghdad, a bomb exploded outside a bank, killing four policemen and a civilian and wounding 15, Iraqi police said.

Two explosions tore through a crowded plaza in a working-class neighborhood of Istanbul on Sunday evening, killing at least 15 people and injuring several dozen others in what authorities declared a terrorist attack. The blasts occurred in the Gungoren neighborhood, a slightly run-down district of shops and apartment blocks well away from the city's best-known tourist sites. The first bomb was planted in either a trash can or a phone booth, according to several reports.

Police raided the home of an American citizen in a suburb of Mumbai, India's financial hub, and seized a computer from which an e-mail claiming responsibility for bombings that killed 45 people in western India was believed to have been sent, officials said. The 48-year-old American has not been detained, said Kirit Sonawane, a police officer. The man is not a suspect, police said Monday.

Three Iraqi soldiers died in a roadside bombing Friday in the northern city of Kirkuk, where relations remained frayed among Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens after a suicide bombing and ethnic clashes early in the week. The bomb targeted a convoy of Iraqi army vehicles, killing three soldiers and wounding two, the military said.