Five bombs in Baghdad kill at least 17 people early Thursday

Wednesday, a suicide truck bomber killed 10, wounded 42 in Kirkuk
The attack at a police station caused several buildings to collapse, trapping victims.
Later, a bomb in Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood killed at least three people.
On Tuesday, a car bomb followed by a suicide bomber killed 65 people and wounded 110 at a university in Baghdad and elsewhere in the capital. Almost of the victims were female students at Mustansiriya University in a predominantly Shiite area who were waiting for buses to take them home. A suicide bomber blew himself up outside the university catching students fleeing from the car bomb attack. The Iraqi government has appealed for blood donors. Earlier a double explosion tore through Baghdad’s mainly Shiite Bab-el-Sheikh neighborhood leaving 15 dead. In the northern part of the capital, gunmen opened fire on shoppers killing ten people before getting away in vehicles.
The United Nations estimates that more than 34,000 Iraqis died in violence in 2006 and charged that some of the killers came from inside Iraqi security forces and went unpunished.
US commander in Iraq General George Casey said Monday, Jan 15, the initial elements of the 20,000 promised reinforcements are in the Iraqi capital, but gave no details of figures or when operations would start. Asked about difficulties with Iraq counterparts over the operation’s planning, Casey said: “Transitions generate friction,” but US and Iraqi officials are working hard to ensure a workable command structure that would allow Iraqi control with US military help.
The American general was confident the Iraqi government would purge militia and extra-government elements from its security forces. He warned there would be no instant improvement in security in the capital, but hoped for results in the summer or autumn.