Iraq car bomb kills three in Kirkuk
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-07-12 19:16

A car bomb exploded Tuesday in the ethnically tense northern oil city of Kirkuk, killing at least three people and wounding 15, police said. An American soldier died of injuries suffered in a land mine explosion south of the capital, the U.S. command said.

In Baghdad, gunmen Tuesday assassinated a police colonel, Amir Mirza, in a market in the city's Wahda district, police said. An Iraqi civilian was killed and nine were wounded in a blast Tuesday in Tal Afar, scene of ongoing clashes between insurgents and U.S. soldiers.

The car bomb went off in the industrial district of Kirkuk as pedestrians were passing by, police Capt. Farhad Talabani said. Police said it did not appear to have been a suicide attack, and no group claimed responsibility.

Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, is located in one of the richest oil fields in the Middle East and is home to Arab, Kurdish and Turkomen communities, each vying for power there.

The blast in Tal Afar occurred after witnesses said someone placed a suspicious object in the trunk of a car and fled the scene, the U.S. military said without elaboration. Nearly 20 insurgents have been killed since Sunday in Tal Afar during an operation by the U.S. 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, the U.S. command said.

Iraqi troops, meanwhile, detonated about three metric tons of explosives found near oil fields in southern Iraq, a military spokesman said. The explosives, including 1,282 mines, 628 mortar rounds and 825 artillery shells, were discovered by Oil Protection Services who called the army to remove them, Capt. Firas al-Tamimi said.

Al-Tamimi said the explosives were believed to have been planted by Saddam Hussein's forces after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, possibly to prevent the oilfields from falling to U.S.-led troops when they drove Iraqi troops from the emirate the following year.

Three other U.S. soldiers were injured in the land mine explosion Monday, which occurred near Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. The religiously mixed area is one of the hotbeds of tension between majority Shiite Muslims and minority Sunnis.

At least 1,756 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,352 died as a result of hostile action. The figures include five military civilians.

In Baghdad, meanwhile, gunmen assassinated a police colonel, Amir Mirza, in a market in the city's Wahda district, police said. The gunmen escaped. Senior police officers are prime targets for Iraqi insurgents.

Also Tuesday, police said an explosion struck a U.S. military convoy in eastern Baghdad, damaging one Humvee. The U.S. military made no statement about the attack but said two roadside bombs struck U.S. and Iraqi convoys north and west of Baghdad, injuring six Iraqi soldiers and damaging one Humvee.

A roadside bomb exploded against an American convoy Tuesday in Samarra, damaging a Humvee, Iraqi police said. There was no U.S. comment on the report. In Baghdad, gunmen fired at security guards at a health clinic, killing a policeman and wounding a child, officials said.

Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry said an investigation had been launched into the deaths of 10 Sunni Arabs in Baghdad after an influential Sunni clerical organization accused Iraqi security forces of torturing and killing them.

The Association of Muslim Scholars said members of an Interior Ministry commando brigade detained the men Sunday in Baghdad's predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Shula.

"The men were taken to a detention center where they were tortured, then locked in a container where they suffocated," the association said.

A doctor at Yarmouk hospital, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the bodies were brought there Monday. He said one of the men had been killed in an exchange of fire between gunmen and Interior Ministry commandos and the others were detained afterward.

Also Tuesday, Defense Minister Saadoun al-Duleimi said the victims of a suicide attack Sunday that killed 25 at an army recruiting center in Baghdad will be posthumously granted army status so their families can receive pensions and compensation.

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