Quickhits - Fires and Bombs

(AP) "Five American soldiers were killed in two separate roadside bomb attacks..."

(AP) Bomb targeting Afghan lawmakers kills 6

(BBC) More than 100 people have been killed or wounded in a suicide bombing in northern Afghanistan, officials say.

(AP) "Sixty Taliban militants on motorbikes and pickup trucks overran a district center in central Afghanistan overnight, pushing out the police and cutting off the town's main road....

The district, in Day Kundi province, is the third that militants have overrun in the last week. Two districts in the western province of Farah are also in Taliban hands."

(Reuters) The US says it is going to release 9 Iranians it has been holding in Iraq. (Payback for the Mahdi stand down?)

And, it looks like Friday may be the day of big protests in Pakistan.