Two farmers die in car bomb

2005-03-14 15:12

Baghdad - Two Iraqi farmers were killed in a car bomb south of Baghdad on Monday as three bodies were found in the so-called "triangle of death" further south from the capital, security and hospital sources said.

The farmers were in a pickup truck carrying lettuce when a car bomb exploded in their path, killing them and wounding two other passersby, according to police at the scene.

He said a US military convoy had passed through the area shortly before the attack, which happened in the Rashid area on the capital's southern approaches.

Further south in Mahmudiyah, a medic in a local hospital said his facility had received three bodies and a wounded man who later died.

The hospital official, who did not want to be named, said the men were attacked by gunmen while travelling on a road west of Mahmudiyah.

The roads crisscrossing the area are among the most treacherous in Iraq and corpses of civilians and members of the fledgling security forces are often dumped in the open.

Meanwhile in the restive northern town of Mosul, an Iraqi cameraman working for a Kurdish-language television station was gunned down, hospital sources said.

Husam Hilal Sarsam, a Christian who worked for the satellite station of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Masoud Barzani, was kidnapped two weeks ago, a member of his family told reporters.

And in the capital, a bomb attack on the car of the director general of the Iraqi health ministry wounded four of his bodyguards, a medical source said.

The attack occurred in Baghdad's western Al-Ghazaliyah district as Saad al-Amili's car drove by, the source said.

Insurgents regularly attack Iraqi officials. Two weeks ago, rebels gunned down a judge and his son working on the special tribunal to try members of the old regime.

- AFP