A roadside bomb and a mortar barrage killed five people and wounding 22 others in Baghdad on Wednesday, a well-informed police source said.

Five mortar rounds landed at a crowded market in the Shurta al-Rabia neighborhood in southwestern the capital on Wednesday afternoon, killing four people and wounding 20 others," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

In separate incident, a roadside bomb detonated on the main road at the al-Rasheed town, killing a civilian and wounding two others, the source added.

A wave of bomb attacks claimed the lives of dozens of Iraqis in the past few days despite the presence of some 85,000 US and Iraqi security forces across the capital in a major offensive aimed at curbing insurgency and sectarian violence in the war-torn country.

(Xinhua News Agency March 1, 2007)