Baghdad, Iraq ? At least 50 people were killed in Iraq Sunday in a catalog of violence that that included a mortar attack, military firefights, roadside bombs and other explosions.

In addition, the U.S. military reported the deaths of six soldiers and airmen on Sunday, including two who were killed when their helicopter apparently was shot down southwest of Baghdad. The U.S. military said in a statement that it had recovered the remains of two pilots of a U.S. AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopter that went down during a combat air patrol southwest of Baghdad at 5:30 p.m. Saturday.

“The soldiers’ remains were recovered following aircraft recovery operations at the crash site” of the helicopter “which went down due to possible hostile fire,” the statement said.

In the single deadliest incident, at least nine people, including three women and two children, were killed in a mortar barrage on the south Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, a predominantly Sunni Arab area, according to Baghdad police Col. Abdullah Nuaimi. He said that 15 people were wounded in the attack.

The bodies of 10 men, all blindfolded and hands bound, were found in three areas of west Baghdad, Nuaimi said. All the men had been shot.

About 40 miles north of Baghdad, in the village of Gubba, insurgents blew up the local Shiite mosque, leaving it in ruins and killing a guard who was posted inside, Baqubah police Col. Adnan Lafta said.

An Iraqi man walks past compact disc shops which were destroyed by bombs Sunday April 2, 2006 in Baqouba, Iraq 60 kilometers (35 miles) northeast of Baghdad. Gunmen planted explosive devices around the al-Guba Shiite mosque in Baqouba and destroyed it as well as three CD shops in another area which were also destroyed early Sunday as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made a surprise visit to press Iraqi politicians to speed up the formation of the government.

The killings and attacks, which seemed to target specific religious communities, are the sort that military and political analysts say are being used by sectarian and insurgent groups to foment strife between Iraq’s minority Sunni Arabs and majority Shiite Muslims and push the country toward civil war.

In other statements Sunday, the military said two U.S. soldiers on foot patrol were killed by a roadside bomb in central Baghdad on Saturday. A Marine died from wounds sustained during hostile action Friday in Anbar province, a stronghold of Sunni insurgents west of the capital. And a soldier died of injuries received March 30 in a non-battle-related operation in Kirkuk.

Late Saturday, in southern Iraq, British and Iraqi soldiers detained 14 members of the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Four were later released. “They were brought in on suspicion of serious crimes and terrorism in and around Basra city,” said Maj. Sebastian Muntz, a spokesman for the British military. “Ammunition and weapons were found there, which gave us a good indication that these are the correct people being detained.”

Previous detentions of al-Sadr loyalists, whom the British consider among the biggest threats to stability in the south, have sparked protests and other unrest. In response to Saturday’s detentions, the Mahdi Army issued threats against British and Iraqi forces.