Baghdad Mortar Barrages Kill at Least 8

BAGHDAD - A series of mortar barrages killed eight civilians and wounded 25 others early Saturday in a Sunni enclave surrounded by Shiite areas in central Baghdad, police said, while a key bridge was damaged by a bomb in northern Iraq.

The mortars began slamming into the Fadhil area in Baghdad at 1:30 a.m. and continued sporadically until 7 a.m., damaging five houses, a policeman said, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to deal with the media. A woman and a child were among the eight dead, he said.

Baghdad's Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods frequently exchange mortar and other fire in Iraq's continuing sectarian conflict.

Elsewhere in the …