Iraqi police said today they had found the body of one of three missing US soldiers while nine others were killed in attacks, setting May on course to be one of the bloodiest months for American forces in Iraq.
Twenty people were killed when a suicide bomber wearing an explosives-packed vest walked into a crowded cafe in Mandali, a mainly Shia Kurd town about 100 km (60 miles) northeast of Baghdad, police said.
The town's mayor put the death toll at 11. Mandali is in the volatile Diyala province, a large, religiously mixed area which has seen some of the worst violence since 2003.
Police said the corpse of a Western-looking man pulled from the Euphrates River south of Baghdad on Wednesday was that of one of three US soldiers missing since an ambush on May 12th. The half-naked body had bullet wounds and bore signs of torture.
Captain Muthanna al-Maamouri, a police spokesman in the provincial capital Hilla, said there were wounds to the torso and shaved head of the body, which was wearing US Army-issue pants and boots and had a tattoo on the left arm.
"This is one of the missing soldiers," he said.
The US military said it had the body and was trying to establish whether it was one of those missing since the May 12th attack south of Baghdad, when four US soldiers and an Iraqi translator were killed.
A river patrol police officer in Mussayab, 60 km (40 miles) south of Baghdad, said the man appeared to have been killed about a week ago, and his head showed signs of torture.
Thousands of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers have been scouring farmland for the missing troops in an area south of Baghdad known as the "Triangle of Death" since the ambush.
The al Qaeda-led Islamic State in Iraq has claimed responsibility for the attack near Mahmudiya but has offered no proof that it holds the three missing soldiers.
US military officials have said they believe at least two of the soldiers were still alive.