Iraq's first lady escaped unharmed from a bomb attack that hit her motorcade and injured four body guards in downtown Baghdad Sunday, AP reported. U.S. troops killed 18 Shiite extremists in unrelenting street battles in the capital's Shiite militia strongholds. The U.S. military said Sunday that 11 al-Qaida insurgents were killed over the weekend in central and northern Iraq and a powerful roadside bomb killed four Marines Friday in the deadliest attack in months in the former al-Qaida stronghold of western Anbar province. President Jalal Talabani's wife, Hiro Ibrahim Ahmed, was headed to the National Theater to attend a cultural festival when her motorcade was hit in the Karrada district of Baghdad, the president's office said. It was not immediately clear whether she was the target or it was a random bombing.
