'US soldiers shoot arbitrarily'
2006-05-29 21:55
Baghdad - At least 58 Iraqis and one press photographer were killed in separate incidents in Iraq on Monday.
Thirty civilians were killed when a bomb, planted on a bus, exploded in the Baghdad district of Kazimiyah, reported Iraqi television.
A separate bomb blast in the district of Karada killed three civilians and injured four.
In a separate incident in Karada district, five Iraqis and a press photographer died after a United States military vehicle hit an explosive device.
The blast destroyed the vehicle, injuring the soldiers inside.
The body of the press photographer was found close to the burnt-out vehicle.
No information on the photographer's identity or nationality was available, but he was understood to have worked for a news agency.
Iraqi civilians used their cars to transport the dead and wounded to nearby hospitals.
In another incident two car bombs exploded, killing eight and wounding 17, in Baghdad.
11 Iraqi workers killed
Witnesses said two closely timed car bombs were detonated in the Iraqi capital. The first went off near the Imam al-Azam Mosque in the northern Azamiya district of Baghdad, killing eight Iraqis.
The second car bomb blew up as an Iraqi police patrol was driving by in Baghdad's Karada district.
The second explosion wounded several members of the police force and damaged a number of neighbouring buildings.
An explosive device, planted inside a bus, killed 11 Iraqi workers and wounded nine in Baquba, said Iraqi sources on Monday.
Iraqi security and hospital sources said the device had exploded in a bus carrying Iraqi construction workers who were employed at the base of the Iranian opposition group Mujahidi Khalq in Khales.
Some reports said a bomb was planted on the bus. Other accounts said it was possibly a suicide bomber among the workers, or that it was a roadside bomb.
Seven people injured
Three Iraqis, including one soldier, were killed in Kirkuk on Monday. Another seven, including two soldiers, were injured in two separate incidents.
The Kirkuk police department said unidentified gunmen had opened fire on a vehicle carrying three Iraqi soldiers on a road in the south of the city.
In a separate incident, an explosive device was detonated as a US army patrol drove through the town of Al Howeija, west of Kirkuk.
US soldiers opened fire following the explosion. Shooting arbitrarily, the US soldiers killed two Iraqi passers-by and injured another five civilians.
Witnesses said that residents of Al Howeija were outraged by the US soldiers' actions.
Five civilians were killed by US army cannon fire in Al Ramadi on Monday.
A family member of one of the casualties said a US army patrol had come under attack, prompting the Americans to return fire - using canons which missed their target and hit three residential buildings.
- SAPA