BAGHDAD, May 21 (UPI) -- Three bombings in Iraq Thursday killed 24 people and wounded more than 50 others in what police called attacks on U.S. soldiers, Iraqi police and their allies.
The attacks followed a car bombing Wednesday near a popular restaurant in western Baghdad in which up to 40 people were killed and scores wounded, The New York Times reported.
A suicide bombing on a U.S. military patrol in Baghdad Thursday killed at least 15 people, 12 of whom were identified as Iraqi civilians, Iraqi officials told CNN. Another 25 people were injured.
In another attack, two police officers were killed and 20 people were wounded by a bomb stashed in a trash can in a police station in western Baghdad, police said.
In southeastern Baghdad, five people were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi police patrol, the country's Information Ministry said.
In Kirkuk, north of Baghdad, seven members of an Awakening Council were killed after a suicide bomber detonated himself, police said. The Awakening Councils are made up of former Sunni insurgents who once fought against U.S. troops but now were allied with them.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki blamed loyalists from the government of Saddam Hussein for the stepped-up violence, the Times said.
