IRAQ: Roadside bomb hits US military vehicle, mortar shells kill 4 in Baghdad violence

Roadside bombs, mortar attacks and crime continue to plague Iraqis and U.S. forces. A U.S. military vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb and set on fire in northern Baghdad on Tuesday (March 27) and witnesses said there were casualties among U.S. troops. The attack took place in Ur, a mainly Shi'ite district and television footage showed a U.S. military vehicle on fire with black smoke billowing from it as U.S. Humvees sealed off the area. The U.S. military could not be reached immediately for comment. In southern Baghdad, two mortar rounds smashed into a residential district on Tuesday, killing four civilians and wounding 14. The mortars were fired into the mainly Shi'ite Abu Dsheer area, part of Doura, on the southern outskirts of the capital that has been plagued by mortar and rocket fire for months. The mortar rounds slammed into two houses in the neighbourhood, killing a woman and a child in one of the houses. "We appeal to every Muslim man and to those who believe in God to find a solution for Iraq. God is greatest. We are going crazy! Our families, women and children are being killed," a female resident shouted in frustration. In the northern oil city of Kirkuk, unidentified gunmen robbed and killed two elderly Christian women in their home late on Monday (March 26). "Two men have shot dead two Christian women inside their house, stealing money from them. It is not a terrorist act. It was a robbery," said Iraqi police officer Colonel Taher Salaheddin. There about 800,000 Christians in Iraq, 3 percent of the population. They are subdivided into Catholic and Orthodox. AR/AD

ITN Source | March 27, 2007

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