BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A regional leader of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's movement and his family died when an explosion went off as they were sleeping in their home in southern Iraq, police said.


Smoke rises Friday from a bombed pipeline in northern Iraq.

Uday Hamid, his wife and two children died in the Numaniya blast, which police told CNN was a bomb.

A suicide car bomb exploded Saturday near an Iraqi police patrol in northern Iraq, killing four police officers and two civilians, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.

Fourteen people were injured, 12 of them police officers, the official said.

Several houses and cars were damaged by the blast, which happened about 8 a.m. on the northern outskirts of Baiji, a town in Salaheddin province about 120 miles north of Baghdad, the official said.

Reuters.com reported that counterterrorism official Col. Ali Shaker was the target and was among the wounded.

A female suicide bomber killed at least 16 people Friday in Muqdadiya, 60 miles north of Baghdad in Diyala province, an official with Iraq's Interior Ministry said.

Don't Miss
Female suicide bomber kills 16
Petraeus notes drop in violence
The bomber was a former member of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, Gen. Mohammed Al-Tamimi of the local police said.

She blew herself up outside a building that hosts meetings for an "awakening council," whose members are opposed to al Qaeda and have formed an alliance with U.S. and Iraqi forces.

On Friday, a pipeline that carries crude oil from northern Iraq's Kirkuk oil fields to a refinery in Salaheddin province was set on fire by a bomb planted by insurgents, Iraqi Oil Ministry spokesman Assem Jihad said.

The damaged section, about 40 miles west of Kirkuk, should be fixed within a few days and has not disrupted Iraqi oil exports, Jihad said.

Meanwhile, Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly, leader of the ancient Chaldean Church, on Saturday celebrated his first Mass in Baghdad since Pope Benedict XVI elevated him to cardinal in November, The Associated Press reported.

"We pray to our Lord that this occasion will be a beginning for a new era of peace and prosperity for our beloved country," said Bishop Shlemon Wardono, according to AP