SERIES OF BOMBINGS SHATTERS CALM IN BAGHDAD THURSDAY

BAGHDAD - A militant was killed when a U.S. airstrike destroyed a house in the southern city of Basra, the U.S. military said Thursday. Iraqi witnesses and hospital officials said at least three civilians were among the dead.A series of bombings also struck Baghdad on Thursday.A parked car bomb targeting a police patrol in western Baghdad killed at least one civilian and wounded 10 other people, including three officers, police said.A roadside bomb struck an Iraqi army patrol elsewhere in the predominantly Sunni Yarmouk neighborhood in the capital, killing one soldier and wounding three others.

The Associated Press
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23931887/

In northern Iraq, a suicide bomber attacked an Iraqi checkpoint west of Mosul late Wednesday, killing seven people, including a woman and a 5-year-old child, and wounding 12, according to the Iraqi military.

The U.S. military confirmed Wednesday night attack's but put the casualty toll at five dead and 19 wounded.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack. But Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, is believed to be the last major urban center where al-Qaida in Iraq maintains a substantial presence.

'Aerial fires'The Wednesday evening airstrike came as the Iraqi government apparently shifts gears to slowly squeeze the gunmen instead of a full-scale assault as it maneuvers for control of Basra — the country's oil capital and a major commercial center of 2 million people.

The U.S.-led coalition directed "aerial fires" against enemy forces fighting Iraqi troops Wednesday near the militia stronghold of Qibla in Basra, said Lt. David Russell, a military spokesman.

The military later confirmed an American plane conducted the attack, saying one militant was killed but it had no reports of civilian casualties.