The U.S. military says its troops battled with insurgents in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul today (Wednesday), killing at least 25 rebels.
American troops, backed by aircraft, fought the insurgents after being attacked with car bombs and small arms fire. Fifteen American troops were wounded.
Earlier in Mosul, Iraqi officials announced the arrest of a suspected senior commander (Abu Marwan) of a local al-Qaida-linked militant group (Abu Talha).
And in Baghdad, rescue workers searched through the rubble of at least 10 homes that collapsed late Tuesday. Insurgents lured police to a booby-trapped house in western Baghdad and then detonated it, killing 29 people, injuring at least 20 and destroying the surrounding homes.
Workers in Kurdish northern Iraq digging the foundation for a new hospital have discovered a mass grave that a regional official says may contain scores of bodies.
Speaking today (Wednesday) in the town of Suleimaniyah, regional human rights minister Salah Rashid said the bodies are likely those of Kurds killed by Saddam Hussein's army following the end of the 1991 Gulf War.
The Associated Press quotes a 60-year-old local man as saying hundreds of Kurds are buried at the site, including his brother.
U.S. and Iraqi officials say more than 250 mass graves have been unearthed across Iraq since Saddam's ouster in 2003. The former dictator remains in U.S. custody, and is expected to go on trial next year on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.