Iraqi cops die in blast

2005-04-13 09:52

Baghdad - Policemen were dismantling what appeared to be a decoy roadside bomb near Kirkuk on Wednesday when another bomb exploded, killing 12 officers and injuring three others, police said.

Police Brigadier Sarhat Qadir said the explosion occurred 15km north-west of Kirkuk as a group of police were trying to cordon off the area. He said officials believed the bomb being dismantled was a decoy to draw in more police before the second bomb exploded.

In Baghdad, insurgents hit an American fuel-supply convoy, leaving a tanker truck engulfed in flames that sent smoke rising high over the city. Twin blasts targeted the convoy of two United States Humvees and a fuel tanker as it made its way through an eastern Baghdad neighbourhood, witnesses at the scene said. The truck burned violently and sent up a large plume of black smoke visible across Baghdad.

It wasn't immediately clear if there were any casualties. The US military had no immediate comment.

Victims appeared to be civilians

On Tuesday, US troops battled arms smugglers and fighters near the Iraqi town of Qaim along the Syrian border, killing an unknown number of foreign insurgents, the US military said. Local hospital officials reported at least nine people killed in clashes in the same area, and said they believed the dead were civilians.

Insurgents opened fire when the US troops began their raid on the smuggling ring on Tuesday, and several militants, including at least one suicide bomber, were killed, the US military said in a statement. No Americans were injured, it said.

Residents reported violent clashes before dawn on Tuesday in and around Qaim, although it was unclear if the violence was related to the raid.

Hamid al-Alousi, director of Qaim hospital, said his facility had received nine corpses and nearly two dozen wounded in the violence. Residents of a small village just north of Qaim said more than a dozen more people were buried in the area and not taken to the hospital. Residents and hospital officials said the victims appeared to be civilians.

It was impossible to verify the claims.

Without providing details, the group al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for the Qaim clashes. The claim, posted on the internet, could not be verified.

The Iraqi government, meanwhile, claimed to have captured a former member of Saddam Hussein's regime, Fadhil Ibrahim Mahmud al-Mashadani. The government said al-Mashadani was the leader of the military bureau in Baghdad under Saddam and it accused him of being "among the main facilitators of many terrorist attacks in Iraq."

"Al-Mashadani is believed to be personally responsible for coordinating and funding attacks against the Iraqi people," the statement said.

- AP