Mortar attack near Baghdad kills woman

A mortar attack struck a neighborhood in a volatile area south of Baghdad on Wednesday, killing a woman and wounding 10 other people, police said.

Three mortar rounds were fired at the residential area in Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad, police said.

Authorities also said they found the body of an Iraqi policeman whose hands and legs had been bound hanging by electric wire, two days after he was kidnapped while going to his home in the same area south of the capital.

Gunmen in a car also opened fire on two brothers, ages 30 and 35, on their way to work as construction workers in Mahaweel, 35 miles south of Baghdad, killing one and wounding the other, police said.

In the capital, a roadside bomb struck in a commercial district in downtown Baghdad, wounding a policeman and a bystander, according to police.

The violence resumed a day after 142 Iraqis were killed or found dead in what appeared to be a renewed campaign of Sunni insurgent violence against Shiite targets.

Police also raised the casualty toll in Tuesday's bombing of the al-Mustansiriyah University in Baghdad to 70 killed and 133 wounded.

The sharp uptick in deadly attacks coincided with the release of U.N. figures that showed an average of 94 civilians died each day in sectarian bloodshed in 2006.