Militants strike Baghdad neighborhood patrols

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen and bombers launched three attacks on U.S.-backed neighborhood security patrols in Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least three of the patrol members and wounding 17.

U.S. forces in Iraq have increasingly relied on neighborhood patrols to keep peace in mainly Sunni Arab parts of Iraq as part of a strategy that has helped bring violence levels down dramatically over the past several months.

But the patrol members, who are paid by U.S. forces and not officially part of the Iraqi security forces, have increasingly come under attack by militants.

In one incident on Saturday, bombers killed two patrol members and wounded 10 in a strike on their headquarters in the Adhamiya neighborhood of northern Iraq, until recently a Sunni Arab militant stronghold.