Iraq Watch: October 6, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - With voting on the nation's proposed draft constitution in a national referendum on October 15 just nine days away violence continues to plague Iraq.

A suicide bomber boarded a minibus carrying Iraqi police recruits Thursday afternoon and detonated his explosives killing at least 10 people and wounding 11 others. The explosion occurred as the bus passed a police checkpoint near the Iraqi Oil Ministry in northeastern Baghdad.

A separate car bomb early Thursday in the capital targeting a convoy of private security vehicles killed three Iraqi's and wounded six others.

About 20 miles south of the capital a roadside bomb killed five Iraqi police and injured two others.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military announced the death of an American soldier who was killed by a roadside bomb early this morning while conducting combat operations in northern Baghdad.

Five Iraqi Oil Ministry security guards were killed and three wounded near Uthaim, just south of Kirkuk, when their vehicle was ambushed by militants. Also near Kikruk, insurgents killed a former Iraqi police colonel along with his one-year-old daughter.