Bomb kills 15 Iraqi soldiers

2005-04-09 22:24

Baghdad - A roadside bomb killed 15 Iraqi soldiers and wounded several others on Saturday morning in Latifiyah, 40km south of Baghdad, a defence ministry official said.

The bomb blew up at 7.30am (03:30 GMT) as a convoy of Iraqi troops passed through the town, the official said.

No other details were immediately available.

The area around Latifiyah, populated by a mix of Sunnis and Shiites, is called the "triangle of death" for its high rate of murders and kidnappings.

In Baghdad, a deputy to anti-American cleric Moqtada Sadr was killed in the southern Dura district as he drove to a protest in the capital against US troops, a Sadr official said.

Assailants in another car opened fire on Sayed Fadel al-Shoq, deputy director of Sadr's office in the Shiite shrine city of Karbala, killing him and wounding another Sadr deputy from the nearby city of Al-Hor, the Sadr official said.

Dura has been riven by sectarian strife. A US army officer in the district has described a low-level war in Dura between Sadr's Mehdi Army militia and Sunni insurgents.

Also south of Baghdad, two drivers were killed and five wounded in an attack on a 14-truck trade ministry convoy travelling between Kut and the capital, an interior ministry source said.

Truck drivers have been killed with increasing frequency in recent months as insurgents continue to hit economic targets around Iraq. The route from Kut, 175km southeast of the capital, has become a regular target for insurgents.

- AFP