Iraq Watch: October 29, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Violence struck the small predoinately Shiite town of Huweder, northeast of Baghdad, on Saturday. A bomb hidden in a truck exploded as people were heading to a nearby mosque for evening prayes and preparing to break the daylong fast, or Siyam, observed during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

At least 26 civilians were killed and another 34 wounded in the sectarian blast.

"We ask the terrorists and the so-called mujahedeen: The people who were killed, what did they do?" cried army Capt. Ahmed Jassim.

Elsewhere Saturday, three U.S. soldiers were killed today in two separate attacks the U.S. military announced. Two Task Force Baghdad soldiers died in a IED attack in southern Baghdad. A Task Force Liberty soldier was killed and four others wounded in a mine blast southwest of Bayji.

In other violence, Mikhail Eros, the deputy director general for oil wells, was assassinated in front of his home on Saturday in the volatile oil-rich city of Kikkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad. Also in Kirkuk, two Iraqi policemen were killed and three more were injured in a roadside bombing.

In Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of the capital, insurgents fired on an Iraqi army checkpoint sparking a firefight that left at least three Iraqi soldiers and three militants dead. An additional seven Iraqi soldiers were wounded in the gun-battle.