BAGHDAD - Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms shot and killed 15 men Saturday in a Kurdish Shiite village northeast of Baghdad and a U.S. soldier was killed and another seriously wounded while searching for three comrades missing for a week after an ambush.
In Baghdad, at least three mortar shells or rockets slammed into the Green Zone after British Prime Minister Tony Blair had arrived for talks with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other Iraqi leaders. One person was injured, but it was unclear how far Blair was from the blasts.
The attack against the villagers occurred early Saturday when gunmen wearing army uniforms entered the village of Hamid Shifi, about 60 miles northeast of Baghdad. They rousted families from their homes and opened fire on the men, killing 15 of them, an Iraqi general and a Kurdish political party said.
The victims were Kurdish Shiites, according to a statement posted on the Web site of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
The village is located in Diyala province where violence has risen sharply in the past six months.
Also Saturday, the U.S. command reported five more American soldiers were killed, all but one the day before. One soldier was killed Saturday by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad, the military said.
The others died Friday - one in the western province of Anbar, one by small arms fire south of Baghdad and two by a roadside bomb and small arms fire in the northwestern part of the capital. No more details were released........
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