Bombing in Baghdad kills eight, injures 28

Published Wednesday, August 16, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A bomb exploded in a crowd of day laborers in central Baghdad today, killing eight people and wounding 28, police said. British troops drove off gunmen who attacked the Basra governor’s office, apparently to avenge a tribal leader killed the day before.

All eight people killed in the Baghdad bombing were civilians, though four police were among the wounded, said police Lt. Bilal Ali said.

Members of the Bani Assad tribe attacked the governor’s office because they believed officials were behind the killing of a tribal leader yesterday, according to an official trapped in the besieged building.

The tribesmen fled after British armored vehicles arrived. Basra Gov. Mohammed al-Waeli said one policeman was killed and four were wounded. Seven attackers were arrested, he said. Authorities imposed an indefinite curfew on the city to allow tempers to cool.

In Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, armed clashes erupted between police and assailants in three predominantly Sunni Arab neighborhoods, police Lt. Col. Abdul-Karim Ahmed Khalaf said.

At least five gunmen were killed and six arrested, he said. Western Mosul is predominantly Sunni Arab, while Kurds dominate in the east of the city.

The clashes occurred one day after a suicide car bomber killed nine people in an attack on the Mosul headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a Kurdish party headed by President Jalal Talabani.

Also today, a roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi army patrol north of Hillah, killing three soldiers and wounding four, police 1st Lt. Osama Ahmed said. Hillah is a mostly Shiite city about 60 miles south of Baghdad.

An Iraqi militant group today released a video showing a Katyusha rocket purportedly fired at the U.S.-controlled Green Zone in a gesture of solidarity with Shiite guerrillas in Lebanon. The footage obtained by The Associated Press showed several masked men casually setting up a launcher in a parking lot containing a number of burned-out buses before firing the rocket, which streaked across the sky out of view.

The group, calling itself "Screaming the Truth," said the rocket was fired Sunday to demonstrate support for Hezbollah guerrillas who battled the Israeli military in Lebanon until a U.N. cease-fire ended 34 days of fighting Monday.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told The New York Times last week that Iran was encouraging Shiite militias to step up attacks on U.S. forces in retaliation for the Israeli assault on Hezbollah.