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Car bomb kills 4 in Basra
18/03/2004 17:02 - (SA)
Baghdad, Iraq - A car bomb exploded as a British military patrol passed by in the southern city of Basra on Thursday, killing four Iraqi civilians, police said, while in Baghdad rescue crews called off their search for survivors of a massive suicide bombing of a hotel that killed at least 7 people, just days before the anniversary of the start of the US-led war in Iraq.
A body was found inside the vehicle in central Basra, prompting police to believe it was a suicide attack, Iraqi police Lieutenant Colonel Ali Kazem said. Three passers-by were also killed. At least 15 people were injured. No British soldiers were wounded.
A man suspected of being involved in the bombing was caught by passers-by and stabbed to death, Kazem said.
The military had earlier said that 27 people were killed in the Baghdad bombing. It then revised that to 17 and later on Thursday Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said only seven were killed. Governing Council official Rowsch Shawayas said Iraqi authorities put the toll at "about 20". Iraq's health minister, Khudeir Abbas, said seven were killed and 35 injured. One Briton was killed and another was wounded, the British government said.
Iraq doesn't have a centralised system for handling such tragedies and with the bodies of victims going to different morgues, government departments and other agencies often disagree over death tolls.
Elsewhere, gunmen opened fire on a minibus, killing three Iraqi journalists and wounding nine other employees of a coalition-funded TV station in northeastern Iraq, police said.
Rebels often target Iraqis perceived as collaborators with the Americans and the attacks underlined the continued vulnerability of Iraqi civilians nearly a year after Saddam Hussein was ousted.
Insurgents also fired mortar rounds at two US military bases on Wednesday, killing three American soldiers and wounding nine others, the military said on Thursday. The deaths brought to 567 the number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of hostilities last year, according to US department of defence figures.
US Army Colonel Jill Morgenthaler confirmed the attack in Baghdad was a suicide bombing but said the destroyed Mount Lebanon Hotel may not have been the intended target because the vehicle loaded with explosives was in the middle of the street and not parked in front of the hotel.
She said it was not clear what the target may have been. The hotel is in the middle of a busy district that is both commercial and residential.
Shawayas, the council official, said the vehicle was moving at the time of the explosion, indicating it was a suicide attack.
The explosion, which left a jagged 6m-wide crater, also torched nearby homes, offices, cars and shops, sending dazed and wounded people stumbling from the wreckage.
A spokesperson for the Iraqi Governing Council, Hamid al-Kafaai, blamed al-Qaeda for the blast but offered no evidence to support the accusation.
- AP
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