Car bombings in Iraq kill at least 21 people

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- An emboldened Iraqi insurgency staged carefully coordinated dual bombings in Saddam Hussein's hometown and a Shiite neighborhood of the capital Sunday, killing at least 21 people. \nAn American soldier was killed in a separate attack.\nMilitant violence over the weekend took at least 38 lives, including those of three Americans.\nA vehicle packed with explosives was driven into a crowd gathered in front of a popular ice cream shop in Baghdad's western al-Shoulah neighborhood Sunday, police Maj. Mousa Abdul Karim said. Minutes later, as police and residents rushed to help the victims, a second suicide car bomber plowed into the crowd. At least 15 people were killed and 40 wounded.\nIn Saddam's hometown of Tikrit on Sunday, two remotely detonated car bombs exploded in quick succession outside a police academy, killing at least six Iraqis and wounding 33, police and a hospital official said. The blasts occurred as recruits were about to leave the station and travel to Jordan for training, said police Lt. Shalan Allawi.\nInsurgents also attacked U.S. forces. A roadside bomb hit one convoy in eastern Baghdad, killing one American soldier and wounding two, the U.S. military said. Iraqi police said two civilians also were wounded in the attack.\nAn American sailor was killed Saturday when the Marine convoy he was traveling with was hit by a roadside bomb in Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, the military said.\nAt least 1,568 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.\nAl-Qaida in Iraq, the country's most feared militant group, claimed responsibility for the Tikrit and eastern Baghdad attacks in statements posted on militant Web sites.\nThe group also claimed responsibility for a roadside bomb targeting a U.S. patrol near the Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad. The U.S. military said no one was hurt in that attack.