Iraqi violence kills 25

The suicide bombing in Tal Afar a city cited by President Bush earlier this year as an example of improving security in Iraq was the deadliest attack on a day when more than two dozen people died in violence around the country.

Four policemen and 10 civilians were killed when the vehicle detonated after speeding into the checkpoint, police Brig. Sabah al-Maamari said. Some of the victims died when parts of nearby homes collapsed from the force of the blast in the city about 30 miles from the Syrian border.

Separately, more victims of Iraq's Shia-Sunni violence were found, with seven bullet-riddled bodies in Baghdad, where US and Iraqi troops have been trying for more than a month to put down sectarian killings in intensified neighborhood-by-neighborhood sweeps.

One American soldier with the 3rd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, died Friday near Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, the military said Saturday. No other details were given.

In the city of Mosul, gunmen killed a woman who was walking with her 5-year-old son, Mosul police Col. Abdel-Karim al-Jubouri said. The boy was not harmed, he said.

The US military had predicted a spike in violence with the onset of Ramadan two weeks ago something that the chief US military spokesman Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell said had been borne out.

"Unfortunately, as expected, attacks have steadily increased in Baghdad during these past weeks," he said Wednesday, adding that the number of car bombs found and cleared were at an all-time high.