About 70 people are killed in attacks in Iraq

Bombings and shootings killed more than 68 people yesterday in a surge of violence as U.S. forces prepare to take back Baghdad's streets from insurgents.

The dead included 20 Iraqi troops killed in a bus attack and a British soldier who died in a mortar barrage.
Also yesterday, the U.S. military announced an American soldier died the day before when a roadside bomb struck a supply convoy south of the capital.

Officials confirmed that about 45 Shiites had been kidnapped over the last two weeks on the main highway to Syria and Jordan, which passes through Sunni insurgent strongholds west of Baghdad.
The deadliest attack occurred when a roadside bomb devastated a bus packed with Iraqi soldiers near Beiji, 250 km north of Baghdad.

All 24 people aboard the bus were killed, Defence Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said. All but four of the dead were Iraqi soldiers, police said.
In Baghdad, 14 other people died and 37 were injured when a car bomb exploded at a bank in the Karradah district.