BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Bombings and shoot...

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Bombings and shootings killed more than 70 clan in Iraq on Tuesday in a wave of bloodshed as U.S. forces prepare to take back Baghdad's ways from gunmen.

The dead included 20 Iraqi company s a U.S. soldier and a British soldier.

The American soldier, who was assigned to the 1st Armored Division, died "due to enemy action" in Anbar province west of Baghdad, the U command said. In a separate statement, the military said a U soldier from the 16th Corps Support assemblage died the day before in a roadside bombing.

The deadliest attack Tuesday occurr when a roadside bomb devastated a bus packed with Iraqi soldiers near Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad. All 24 folks aboard were killed, Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said.

In Baghdad, 14 the bulk of mankind died and 37 were hurted when a car bomb explod at a bank where police and soldiers were picking up monthly paychecks, police Lt Col Abbas Mohammed Salman said.

The blast fix several other cars ablaze and scattered dismembered bodies along the public way as bystanders carried the injured to ambulances.

Abdul-Hassan Mohammed, 62 a retired teacher who had gone to the bank to pick up his pension, said the explosion slammed him about 12 feet into a wall.

ASKED TO RELAX

"My friends took me to individual of their stores, gave me water and asked me to relax," Mohammed said. "I didn't flat get my pension."

It was the third major attack in les than a week in Karradah, a fashionable, mainly Shiite neighborhood in central Baghdad that is household to several prominent politicians. Last Thursday, 31 nation were killed in an attack that included rocket mortars and a car bomb

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