21 Killed in Iraq Car Bombings

A bomb tore through a busy square in Baghdad at midday today, killing at least 18 people and wounding 25, the AP reports. Iraqi police said the blast in a northern Baghdad Shiite neighborhood was a parked car bomb, apparently targeting a taxi stand. Some 60 miles south of Baghdad, a car bomb exploded as an Iraqi soldier and two others were trying to defuse it; all three were killed.

The two nonmilitary victims were members of the local awakening council, one of several names used to refer to the Sunni insurgents and tribesmen who have turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq, a police officer said, noting that 10 other people were wounded in the blast. (More Iraq war stories.)