Iraq car bombing kills three

2006-04-05 13:38

Baghdad - At least three people were killed and five wounded in a second car bomb attack in Baghdad, which went off minutes after a similar bombing left 13 wounded in the capital, said an interior ministry official.

According to the official, the second bombing took place on the Beirut Street of east Baghdad, while the first was set off in front of the popular Al-Haji restaurant in the northern Al-Shula neighbhourhood.

Police said that in the southern city of Basra, a professor was shot dead by armed men in front of his college.

The bombings came as former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was testifying in the Dujail massacre case after the trial resumed on Wednesday following a three-week recess.

Three Iraqis chained to a wall

Earlier on Wednesday, the US military said three civilians held hostage in the restive northern city of Mosul were freed by a team of Iraqi soldiers and police.

It said that a tip from a local resident led the team to a house in the city, and the "combined force entered the house and found three Iraqis chained to the wall of the basement. The joint force freed the hostages".

In a separate statement, the military said that coalition forces raided several buildings in Yussifiyah, southwest of Baghdad, on Wednesday and captured nine "terrorists" and killed one.

It said: "During the troops' initial search, several terrorists fled from one building into another in an attempt to evade the assaulting force.

"The coalition forces shot and killed one before he entered the adjacent structure and demanded the others exit peacefully and several willingly complied."

A large cache of weapons and ammunition was also found. Last week, a US military Apache helicopter was shot down by insurgents in Yussifiyah, killing two pilots.

- SAPA