The day in violent death

Iraq yesterday: A suicide bomber detonated explosives Sunday inside a cafe packed with Shiites in northern Iraq, killing 26 people and injuring 22, an Iraqi general said. Gunmen seized a top Oil Ministry official, the second major kidnapping in as many days.

The U.S. military said an American soldier was killed in a roadside bombing in south Baghdad. No further details were released.

In the south, a British soldier was killed and another wounded during a raid against a "terrorist suspect" in Basra, the British military said.

Iraq today: Dozens of people were killed in an attack around a crowded market in a violent town just outside Baghdad on Monday, one of the bloodiest incidents in Iraq this year, police and Interior Ministry officials said.

Officials in Baghdad put the death toll at around 40, a local police commander put it at 55 and Iraqiya state television ran a flash later putting the number of dead at 70. Police and the Interior Ministry could not immediately confirm that figure.

Israel/Syria today: Several suspected Hezbollah rockets hit the northern Israeli city of Haifa today. The sixth day of the brewing conflict in the Middle East witnessed Israeli ground troops briefly entering southern Lebanon to attack Hezbollah bases on the border. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for the seployment of international forces to stop the violence. Meanwhile, G8 leaders "crafted a plan to stop the fighting."