surge update - Three Baghdad blasts kill at least 20 people

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BAGHDAD - A female suicide bomber blew herself up near an entrance to the U.S.-protected Green Zone and a bomb tore through a minibus carrying Iraqi government employees in separate attacks on Monday, killing at least 20 people, Iraqi officials said.

Three more people were killed in bomb attacks on police patrols in Baghdad and Baqouba, northeast of the capital, police said.

The violence came as Iraqi lawmakers prepared for a vote Wednesday on a security pact with the United States that would enable American forces to stay in Iraq for up to three more years under strict Iraqi oversight.

In the first attack, a bomb attached to a bus used by the Trade Ministry to ferry employees to work exploded shortly before 8 a.m. in eastern Baghdad, police and hospital officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Thirteen ministry employees were killed and three wounded, according to an official with the state-owned Iraqi shopping centers company who also spoke on condition of anonymity. The company is part of the Trade Ministry.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27883008/