37 Iraqis, 2 US Soldiers Killed, 14 Soldiers Kidnapped, Samarra Mosque Minarets Destroyed, on June 13, 2007

The Iraq News Agency (INA) reported that Iraqis and a US soldier were killed on June , 2007.

- The Iraqi government announced a curfew in Baghdad starting at 6:00 pm local time, without an end, following the attack on the Samarra's Askariya mosque, which destroyed its two minarets.

- Manager of government-owned Al-Sabah newspaper, Fleih Wadai Mijdhab, was kidnapped in front of his home today.

- A suicide bomber wearing police uniform detonated his bomb in Mendali police station, on the Iraq-Iran border, killing himself and three other policemen, including the police chief, Sobhi Abbas.

- Negroponte arrived in Baghdad to express the Bush administration support for the Maliki government and to pressure the government to fulfill its obligations, particularly the oil law (which according to critics would allow international companies to get oil concessions in various provinces).

- The Islamic State of Iraq group kidnapped 14 Iraqi soldiers and policemen and threatened to execute them within 72 hours if the Maliki government does not release Iraqi female prisoners.

- 9,352 Iraqis were killed, 15,809 were injured, during the first five months of 2007, according to a report by Iraqi Without Violence human rights group. The dead included 5,494 men, 2,164 women, and 1,665 children.

The (US) Associated Press news agency (AP) reported that 11 Iraqis were killed, including two suicide bombers and nine policemen, on June , 2007. The AP reported the following different news.

Bombers destroyed the two minarets of a revered Askariya Shi'i shrine in Samarra early Wednesday, in a repeat of the 2006 attack that shattered its famous golden dome and unleashed a (calculated) wave of retaliatory sectarian violence that still bloodies Iraq.

The mosque contains the tombs of the 10th and 11th imams - Ali al-Hadi, who died in 868, and his son, Hassan Al-Askari, who died in 874. Both are descendants of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace and blessings of God be upon him).

The shrine also is near the place where the 12th imam, Mohammed al-Mahdi, disappeared. Al-Mahdi, known as the "hidden imam," was the son and grandson of the two imams buried in the Askariya shrine. Shi'is believe he will return to Earth restore justice to humanity.

After last year's bombing, the mosque was guarded by about 60 Federal Protection Service forces and 25 local Iraqi police who kept watch on the perimeter, according to Samarra city officials.

In other violence, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a police station in a town near the Iranian border, killing five Iraqi policemen and wounding 10, the mayor said. In the western city of Ramadi, a suicide bomber killed four policemen at a checkpoint, police said.

In northern Iraq, militants blew up part of a bridge in the country's fourth attack on a span in as many days, police said.

The attackers had planted explosives under the Zikaytoon overpass near Kirkuk, about 180 miles north of Baghdad, said police Brig. Sarhat Qader. No one was wounded, he said.

Associated Press Writers Sameer N. Yacoub and Hamid Ahmed in Baghdad and Abdul-Hussein Al-Obeidi in Najaf contributed to this report.

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