BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Three car bombs targeting military patrols exploded in Baghdad on Saturday, killing four people and wounding 16, police said.
Militants detonated one car bomb alongside a joint Iraqi and U.S. military patrol in the Zayuna district of eastern Baghdad, as it passed near a police station, killing two passers-by, one of them a child, and wounding 10.
A second car exploded near a U.S. military convoy in the west of the capital, police said. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties from that blast.
A car bomb also killed two civilians and wounded six when it blew up near a U.S. patrol in eastern Baghdad, police said.
The explosions came a day after a series of coordinated strikes in Baghdad and nearby areas killed more than 30 people and wounded nearly 100.
Among the dead were three U.S. soldiers, raising the number killed in action since the invasion of Iraq to 1,204.
Friday's string of at least 12 car and roadside bombings mostly targeted Iraqi security forces and the U.S. military, and came the day after Iraq formed its first democratically elected government since Saddam Hussein's fall.
Several of the blasts involved a new tactic employed by insurgents in which a second car bomber detonates his vehicle shortly after the first strike, in an effort to target rescuers and others rushing to the scene.
The majority of Friday's attacks were claimed by a group describing itself as al Qaeda's wing in Iraq, which is headed by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
In an audio tape put on the Internet on Friday, a person purporting to be Zarqawi threatened more bombings and bloodshed in Iraq and said President Bush would not be allowed to "enjoy peace of mind."
