BAGHDAD: A series of bombs targeting Iraqi security forces ripped through busy areas in Baghdad as US Vice President-elect Joe Biden arrived in the city yesterday.

There was no formal announcement of Biden’s arrival in the Iraqi capital.

The blasts killed at least nine people, police said. The violence began when two vehicles parked about 50 meters apart exploded in quick succession just after 7 a.m. as a police patrol passed by a bakery in a Shiite area.

The road, which runs through a commercial district, is frequently used by police and army convoys in the eastern New Baghdad neighborhood, residents said. Police and hospital officials said four people, including a policeman who died at the hospital, were killed and nine others wounded.

“I rushed out with others to see three bodies on the ground in pools of blood,” said Mohammed Nasir, 55, who runs a food takeaway shop in New Baghdad.

“This place has witnessed several bombings before and we fear that violence will come back after a period of quiet.”

The US military said the Iraqi police were hit when explosives planted on a truck detonated as they were responded to the initial car bomb. The US military gave a lower casualty toll, saying one Iraqi policeman was killed and two civilians were wounded.

In western Baghdad, a roadside bomb struck a military convoy with a truck carrying weapons in the mainly Sunni area of Yarmouk, killing three Iraqi soldiers and wounding four bystanders, police said.

Two other roadside bombs apparently aimed at Iraqi Army and police patrols elsewhere in the capital killed two civilians and wounded seven other people, police officials said.

Iraqi security forces have been frequently targeted as they increasingly take the lead in military operations.

US troops are assuming more of an advisory role and preparing to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011.

Also yesterday, the US military announced that a US soldier died the day before of a non-combat related injury near Samarra north of Baghdad. It said the incident occurred on Sunday but gave no further details.

The death takes to 4,226 the number of US military personnel who have died in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, according to a tally based on the independent website www.icasualties.org.

Meanwhile, military officials said yesterday Iraqi security forces have arrested the chief of a Sunni insurgent group suspected of carrying out a spate of bombings while also enjoying the support of some politicians.

Thabit Al-Sammarrai, a top commander of Ansar Al-Sunnah in Iraq, was captured on Dec. 18 in Yarmuk, Baghdad security forces statement said.

“He has acknowledged his responsibility for the group Ansar Al-Sunnah which supported and financed terrorist groups and supervised the movement of insurgents in Iraq,” a statement from the Baghdad’s operations command centre said.

“He had links to a number of personalities who are working to undermine the political process and trying to destabilize the security and the impact of the successes of our security forces in various parts of Iraq,” it added.