Baghdad - An Iraqi soldier was killed Monday when a bomb went off inside his car in the northern Kurdish province of Salahaddin, while four civilians were killed and 
17, including a policeman, were wounded in a series of separate blasts across Baghdad, police sources said.

A bomb exploded inside the car of a soldier who was on his way to work in Tuzkhurmato district in Salahaddin province. The detonation killed the soldier, a police source told the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency. The source did not give further details.

Separately, four civilians were wounded in a blast near the al- Nahda area in eastern Baghdad. Police cordoned off the area and moved the wounded to a nearby hospital, a police source told VOI.

Hamburg  - The Syrian Arab Republic, a neighbour of both Israel and Iraq, is embroiled in several conflicts. The country has been the target of several military attacks:

October 26, 2008: US soldiers attack a village near the Iraqi border, Syria claims. Nine people are said to have been killed and 14 injured in the commando raid. According to Iraqi sources, the operation was to target suspected terrorists that had previously attacked Iraqi security forces on the border. The US military has not officially confirmed the operation.

Baghdad - The Iraqi government on Monday said that it is talking to US officials over the American raid on the remote Syrian border village of Al-Sukariya and that it hoped the incident would not spoil Iraq's ties with Damascus.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh at the same time reiterated an unsourced US statement that the raid targeted a haven for a militant group which used to carry out execute deadly attacks inside Iraq.

Damascus - Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said Monday he did not believe the reported US commando raid in Syria would affect Israel.

Barak declined to say whether the US had given Israel prior notice of the raid, which he called part of the global struggle against radical Islamic terrorism.

"This is apparently part of the continuation of the struggle which is taking place today on the entire globe really against radical Islamic terror," he told Israel Radio.

Asked if the US had notified Israel, he replied: "I don't want to get into anything of that sort."

Baghdad - Three civili

Damascus - Syria on Monday condemned a helicopter-borne commando raid on a remote border village by US forces in which it said eight civilians, including four children, were killed.

A government spokesman in Damascus added that the Iraqi government also bore responsibility for the incident.

According to the state-run news agency SANA, the eight victims included a married couple, their four children, and two men in the attack at the village on Sunday.

Last previous media reports in Damascus had put the death toll at nine, with 14 persons wounded. But those reports were never officially confirmed.

SANA said that the US charge d'affaires in Damascus was called in to the Syrian Foreign Ministry after the incident.