7 GI's, 2 Contractors Killed Over Weekend

Three of the U.S. victims were soldiers died Sunday in bombings in central Iraq, the U.S. command said. One soldier was killed and a second was wounded during an attack on a patrol near Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad. Two others died in an explosion near Khaldiyah, 75 miles west of Baghdad, the military said in a statement.

On Saturday, three U.S. Marines and a sailor were killed in fighting in Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad. The soldiers were attacked by a suicide car bomb, which destroyed a nearby building and set fire to the hospital.

Two explosives-laden cars earlier plowed into an American security company convoy in the heart of Baghdad, killing at least 22 people — including two Americans. The two dead Americans were employed by CTU Consulting, a Fayetteville, N.C.-based security consultancy.