9 killed in attacks across Baghdad

At least nine people were killed in Baghdad Thursday as a bomb tore through a minibus in a predominantly Shiite commercial district and mortars hit a Sunni area, officials said.

The bombing of the minibus killed at least six and wounded eight, police said. It struck at noon in the district of Karradah, which has been hit by several bombings in recent weeks as insurgents try to maximize the number of people killed before a planned U.S.-security crackdown.

A suicide car bombing devastated the area less than a week ago, killing some 30 people.

Mortar rounds slammed into a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad for the third day in a row, killing at least three people and wounding 10, hospital officials said.

Five mortar rounds struck the streets of the northern area of Azamiyah on Thursday morning, according to officials who gave the casualty toll.

The Sunni area has been hit daily by mortar attacks since Tuesday, when at least five people were killed and 20 wounded in apparent retaliation for insurgent bombings against predominantly Shiite areas coinciding with the Shiite holy day of Ashoura.

Four people were killed in an afternoon mortar attack Wednesday in Azamiyah.

Elsewhere, the U.S. military said that a soldier died Thursday of wounds sustained in fighting in Anbar province.

The soldier assigned to Multi National Force _ West was killed after being wounded in fighting on Tuesday in the Sunni insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad, the military said in a statement.

The soldier was not identified pending notification of relatives.