IRAQ: Two car bombs kill 10 people in Baghdad and clashes in Shi'ite city of Diwaniya after U.S. raid

Two car bombs which appear to have been aimed at Iraqi police killed ten people and wounded 39 others in Baghdad on Thursday (September 14). The first blast targeted patrols of Iraqi police north of Baghdad killing one civilian and wounding 13 others, interior ministry sources said. They said that the car was parked on the side of a street in the mainly Shi'ite district of Al-Hurriya as a police patrol was passing. The police patrol was not hurt in the attack. The second attack struck a police patrol outside an orphanage near the busy Karrada district of central Baghdad killing nine people and wounding The car bomb was detonated by remote control and a nearby police patrol car was caught in the blast. It was not clear what the target was but insurgents have killed thousands of members of Iraq's fledgling security forces with similar attacks in the past. "There was a police patrol outside the Passport and Citizenship building in Karrada district when a car bomb exploded. The car bomb was targeting the police patrol and people queuing outside the building. The blast killed a large number of people. It is a terrorist act and we ask concerned authorities to prevent such acts," said eyewitness Mohammed . At least 10 civilian cars were damaged in blast. Also on Thursday a funeral was held for six members of a Shi'ite family who relatives claim were killed by gunmen in western Baghdad. They said the three men, two women and a four month old child were killed by three gunmen who attacked them while in their house in the al-Jihad neighbourhood. "I opened the door to go out of the house when he (a gunman) opened fire at me and said 'stop you bastard'. I managed to hide and ran away but my father and brothers were still in the house. My brother who was in the washing room carried his machine-gun but they were faster than him, they killed him. This is my son," said father of the four month old baby who was killed in the attack. An attack on a revered Shi'ite shrine in February unleashed bloodletting conflict between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Muslims who were politically dominant under Saddam Hussein and now form the backbone of the three-year-old insurgency. Early on Thursday, authorities put the Iraqi city of Diwaniya under curfew after a man was killed and several wounded in clashes that followed a U.S. army raid on an office of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. U.S. troops reinforced the Shi'ite city, 180 km (115 miles) south of Baghdad, two weeks ago after fighting between Sadr's Mehdi Army militia and the Iraqi army which left dozens dead. Ten people were wounded after guards at the provincial governor's office fired on dozens of Sadr followers protesting about the overnight raid. A woman and child were hurt when U.S. troops clashed with stone-throwing Sadr supporters outside their movement's local headquarters. Among the wounded were two policemen. Officials in Sadr's movement said U.S. troops raided their headquarters in Diwaniya around 4 a.m. (0000 GMT), removing computers and papers. Sadr's group is part of the Shi'ite bloc which dominates the government, but is also engaged in a power struggle in oil-rich southern Iraq with other Shi'ite factions.

ITN Source | September 15, 2006

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