Officials: Bomber kills 3 outside Iraqi mosque

A suicide bomber disguised as a street cleaner walked up to soldiers outside a mosque and blew himself up Friday, killing two of the troops and a worshipper in a western Iraqi city that was once an al-Qaida hotbed. The blast wounded six other people, including four soldiers who were stationed outside the Fallujah mosque to protect worshippers, according to a senior city police official. The unit's commander, an army colonel, was among the dead, the official said. A local health official confirmed the casualties. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information. The mosque is near a government compound that houses offices for Fallujah's mayor, city council, police and courts. Fallujah, 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Baghdad in the Sunni-dominated Anbar province, was once a capital for Iraq's insurgency and the site of two deadly battles in 2004 with American forces. Those fights were triggered by the horrific deaths of four U.S. contractors who were killed and mutilated in Fallujah, and their charred bodies dragged through the streets before two of them were hung from a bridge.

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