A third car-bombing struck at the main gate to an Iraqi military garrison located at a disused airport in central Baghdad. The U.S. military said two Iraqi army soldiers and two Iraqi civilians were killed in that attack. The U.S. military also said a car bomb detonated southwest of Baghdad International Airport, killing two Iraqi security guards. Hours later, another car bomb went off in northern Baghdad around noon near a bank and a Shiite Muslim mosque. Police said one person was killed and one killed at that bombing. Elsewhere in the capital, insurgents in a car fired on a Baghdad office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, killing one of its members and wounding another, PUK officials said. Outside the capital, Maj. Gen. Wirya Maarouf, the dean of a police academy in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, escaped an assassination attempt when gunmen opened fire on his convoy in the city of Irbil. One bystander was killed and another injured, said police Col. Tharwat AbdulKarim.

In the northern city of Dahuk, a roadside bomb exploded near the convoy of provincial Gov. Nejrivan Ahmed but he was not injured, AbdulKarim said. An Iraqi police officer was killed Wednesday in another car bombing in the largely Shiite city of Hillah south of Baghdad, the Polish military said. Fresh clashes erupted Wednesday between U.S. troops and insurgents in the northern city of Mosul. A car bomb exploded beside a U.S. convoy in the eastern part of the city, and two Iraqis were killed when American troops opened fire after the blast, witnesses said. There were no reported casualties among the Americans. U.S. and Iraqi officials had predicted a steady increase in violence in the run-up to the election, in which Iraqi voters will choose a National Assembly and provincial legislatures. Sunni Muslim insurgents have vowed to disrupt the ballot. Also, in the city of Kirkuk, two human rights leaders were killed, officials said. Their bodies were found shot in the head and chest after being kidnapped Tuesday, police said. Carlos Valenzuela, the chief UN election adviser in Iraq, said the intimidation of electoral workers by guerrillas seeking to derail this month's balloting is ``high and very serious.'' But Valenzuela told reporters Tuesday that only a sustained onslaught by insurgents or the mass resignation of electoral workers will prevent this month's national elections from going ahead. U.S. troops have stepped up raids across the country, arresting scores of suspected insurgents in hopes of aborting plans to disrupt the ballot. On Wednesday, the U.S. military acknowledged that its soldiers opened fire on a car as it approached their checkpoint, killing two civilians in the vehicle's front seat. Six children riding in the backseat were unhurt. It wasn't clear from a military statement whether the two victims were the children's parents. A similar incident occurred when Dutch troops shot at a civilian car that ignored orders to stop at a checkpoint, killing one of two people inside the vehicle. -Hamza Hindawi.

NASA rover finds meteorite on Mars

Photo: The robotic arm of rover Opportunity can be seen investigating a basketball-size metal meteorite sitting on the surface of Mars. Scientists said the discovery was made last week while Opportunity was taking a look at a spacecraft shell that was jettisoned before landing after protecting the rover during its plunge through the Martian atmosphere. (AP Photo/NASA)

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA- In a stroke of luck, the NASA rover Opportunity has discovered a basketball-size metal meteorite sitting on the surface of Mars, the mission's main scientist said Tuesday. Scientists believe the meteorite might lead to clues about how Martian winds are reshaping the planet's surface. Opportunity came upon the meteorite last week while performing other tasks. Tests confirmed it was a nickel-iron meteorite, said Steve Squyres, a Cornell University scientist who is the principal investigator for NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers mission. "I didn't see this one coming," Squyres said. "I try very hard to anticipate the things that we might find and the things we might need to know and be prepared for things, but an iron meteorite was not something that I was expecting."