Fighting continues with even more intensity in the war-torn Iraq, dozens of people being killed only Wednesday, among them nine soldiers belonging to the US peacekeeping mission.

More than 20 Iraqi citizens were killed in the Diyala province when a suicide bomber detonated his deadly charge in Mendily. The blast also wounded 25 other people that were in the bistro where the powerful explosion occurred.

Another bomb attack took the lives of three civilians and injured 15 in the southern part of the country, police sources informed.
Two patrols of the US military were attacked in different parts of Iraq Tuesday, four soldiers dying in the incidents, officials from of the military reported Wednesday. Also, one soldier was killed in a fire exchange in Baghdad, while four US troopers died in clashes and explosions in Anbar, a Sunni Arab province of Iraq.

Elsewhere, the whereabouts or health condition of the three kidnapped US soldiers are still unknown. The military confirmed that a body of one man in US army uniform was found in the Babil province. The dead person wasn’t identified yet.

Iraqi media also reported that three more bodies of allegedly US servicemen were found and the police confirmed the men were previously tortured, before being executed. Since 12 May massive search operations were launched in the southern region of Baghdad for the missing soldiers, presumably kidnapped by militants.