Bomb in bananas kills 6

2004-05-09 12:47

Baghdad - New evidence emerged on Sunday of abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US troops, as Iraqi police and witnesses said six people were killed in a bomb blast at a crowded marketplace in Baghdad.

The bomb was concealed in a box of bananas in Baya market, western Baghdad, a police officer told AFP, giving a casualty toll of four dead and nine wounded. Witnesses said two more people, both policemen, also died.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, US troops and militiamen of rebel cleric Moqtada Sadr traded small arms fire on Sunday in the Shiite slum of Sadr City, the morning after soldiers arrested a top Sadr lieutenant in the district.

Troops seized Sayed Amer al-Husseini and at least four other people after 20 US military vehicles sealed off the area round Sadr's office in the deprived district.

They fought a gun-battle with the Mehdi Army militia, killing one Sadr supporter and wounding another.

Fresh evidence emerged on Sunday to belie protests by US President George W Bush and his administration that abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American troops was confined to a small minority.

Bush sought in his weekly Saturday radio address to play down the extent of abuse of Iraqis held at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, blaming "a small number of American servicemen and women".

Following orders

But one of the seven US soldiers charged with abusing prisoners said she was acting under direct orders from military intelligence to "make it hell" for inmates before interrogation, The Washington Post reported.

Sabrina Harman told the Post they were given no rules and little training, and she never read the Geneva Convention until two months after she was charged.

"I read the entire thing, highlighting everything the prison is in violation of. There's a lot."

On the ground, Shiite rebel Sadr is bunkered down in the central shrine city of Najaf as his supporters battle with US-led coalition forces across central and southern Iraq.

US tanks remained stationed on Sunday around the entrance to Sadr City.

On one of the main streets, Sadr supporters had set light to tyres, and militia were deployed around the offices where Husseini was arrested.

In southern Iraq, four civilians were killed and a fifth wounded when British troops responded to mortar fire from Mehdi Army militiamen in the town of Amara early on Sunday, police and medical sources said.

- SAPA