A woman who was wounded in a bomb attack is wheeled into a hospital in Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad yesterday. A suicide bomber killed at least 18 people when he rammed a truck into a government building in Sulaiman Bek, a town about 90 km (55 miles) south of the city of Kirkuk yesterday, partially knocking it down and demolishing nearby homes, police said. - Reuters

BAGHDAD (AP):

The United States military said 14 American troops - including five slain yesterday in a single roadside bombing that also killed four Iraqis in Baghdad - have died in several attacks over a three day period.

Elsewhere, a suicide truck bomber struck the Sulaiman Bek city hall in a predominantly Sunni area of northern Iraq, killing at least 16 people and wounding 67, an Iraqi commander said.

Thousands of protesters also rallied in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, 160 kilometres (100 miles) south of Baghdad, waving Iraqi flags and the black and green Shi'ite banners with slogans such as "Death to al-Qaida" in a show of unity following the bombing that brought down the twin minarets of a revered mosque in Samarra.

A bombing that destroyed the golden dome of the Askariya mosque on February 26, 2006, set in motion an unrelenting cycle of retaliatory sectarian bloodletting, but the son of a top Shi'ite politician blamed the violence on Sunni extremists and Saddam Hussein loyalists and urged the demonstrators to maintain peace.

Cancer treatment

Ammar al-Hakim - whose father Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq, is in Iran for cancer treatment - also criticised a U.S.-Iraqi security plan in Baghdad and surrounding areas, which is now in its fifth month.

"The security situation in Baghdad, Diyala and other areas shows that the security plan needs revision and development in order to achieve greater results," he said. "We demand that the Government shoulder responsibility in this revision and put forward the necessary plans to impose security. Security and services are vital and they should be the top priority of the Iraqi government."