Suicide bombers struck Monday near a Baghdad police academy and in Mosul against a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol, killing more than people, Iraqi officials said.

With the sharp drop in violence in Iraq this year, women are venturing onto the roads. They are gingerly reclaiming freedoms denied by the Islamic extremists since the 2003 U.S. invasion.

Two Iraqi soldiers acting as insurgents hook up a cellular phone detonator to a 155mm artillery shell with a coiled red wire, bury the mock bomb in a pile of dirt next to a rusty electricity pole and then disappear down the street.