By KIM GAMEL
The Associated Press

BAGHDAD - Three suicide truck bombers targeted members of an ancient religious sect in northwestern Iraq on Tuesday, killing at least 20 people and setting apartment buildings and stores ablaze, while the crash of an American transport helicopter near an air base in Anbar killed five U.S. service members.

Four more U.S. soldiers were reported killed in separate attacks - three in an explosion near their vehicle Monday in the northwestern Ninevah province and another who was died of wounds from combat in western Baghdad.

In a separate attack, a fourth suicide truck bomber struck a strategic bridge on the main highway linking Baghdad with the northern city of Mosul, killing at least 10, police said. The span was bombed three months ago and only one lane had reopened, according to the police officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

And in Baghdad, dozens of uniformed gunmen in 17 official vehicles stormed an Oil Ministry compound and abducted a deputy oil minister and three other officials, a ministry spokesman and police said.

The violence came as 16,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops began a new operation north of the Iraqi capital targeting insurgents who have fled a crackdown in the restive city of Baqouba, the military said Tuesday.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the attacks on the Yazidis, a primarily Kurdish sect that worships an angel figure considered to be the devil by some Muslims and Christians, but they bore the hallmark of al-Qaida in Iraq, which has been regrouping in the north of the country after being driven from safe havens in Anbar and Diyala provinces.

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