Violence claimed lives of 21 people in Iraq

Violence claimed the lives of 21 people in Iraq, including a U.S. soldier, a university lecturer and a member of the Diyala provincial council, officials said Monday.More than 50 people were wounded, including a provincial governor.The U.S. soldier died Monday when a rocket-propelled grenade hit his patrol vehicle in Baghdad, the military said, bringing the number of American troops killed in the Iraq war to 2,167.

Early Monday, a roadside bomb exploded near the convoy of the Diyala province governor, Rashid Mula al-Timimi, in northeast Baquba, north of Baghdad, said an official with Diyala's provincial Joint Coordination Center in Baquba. The governor was wounded, and one of his guards killed, the official said.Later Monday, gunmen killed a member of Diyala's provincial council, Soad Jafar, and her driver in a southern Baquba neighborhood, an official said.

In addition, five Iraqi police were killed in Buhritz when attackers sprayed quick-reaction forces with machine-gun fire, according to the Joint Coordination Center. Three others were wounded.No other details were immediately available.Buhritz is about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of Baghdad.

Also, clashes Sunday evening between Iraqi soldiers and insurgents in Dhabab, 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Baquba, left two soldiers dead and four wounded, the Joint Coordination Center said. In the Iraqi capital, five bombings left at least five people dead Monday.

Two car bomb attacks targeted police patrols in central Baghdad. One attack killed a civilian and two police officers, police said, leaving four civilians wounded. The other wounded two civilians.A third car bomb attack, in northern Baghdad, killed a civilian and wounded a dozen others, including three police.A fourth car bomb went off near a central Baghdad shopping district, wounding six people. Among the wounded was an Iraq police commando.

Also, a parked motorcycle rigged with a bomb exploded in a busy market in northwestern Baghdad, killing a civilian and wounding 23 others, a police official said. In addition, Iraqi police found three bodies in a drainage canal early Monday, a police official said. All three were shot to death, the official said. The bodies, which have not been identified, were found about 7 a.m. in southeastern Baghdad's Rustimiya area.

Police also found the body of an Iraqi police officer at about 8 a.m. near an eastern Baghdad highway.And gunmen killed Noufel Ahmed Hassan, a lecturer at the Institute of Fine Arts, about 8 a.m. as he was leaving his home in northwestern Baghdad's Salam neighborhood for work, reports the AP. I.L.