Car bomb blast near girls’ school kills six

A CAR bomb yesterday exploded near a Baghdad junior high school for girls, killing six people.

Meanwhile eight American soldiers have been killed over the past two days of insurgent attacks in and around Baghdad.

The US military announced that in total 13 American troops have been killed since Sunday. Insurgents who carried out a string of explosions, suicide attacks and drive-by shootings around the country have also killed 49 Iraqis.

At least 620 people, including 57 US troops, have been killed since April 28, when Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari announced his new Shi’ite-dominated government. Washington hopes his government will eventually train police and an army capable of securing Iraq, allowing the withdrawal of coalition troops.

Three US soldiers were killed yesterday in central Baghdad when a car bomb exploded next to their convoy, said military spokesman Sergeant David Abrams.

About a half-hour later, a US soldier sitting in the back of a Bradley fighting vehicle at an observation post was shot to death by gunmen in a passing car.

Four were killed on Monday after they were attacked in Haswa, 30 miles south of Baghdad. The soldiers were assigned to the 155th Brigade Combat Team, Second Marine Expeditionary Force.

As of last night, at least 1,642 members of the US military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003.

The US military announced that a two-day operation involving more than 2,000 Iraqi soldiers and police - the largest-ever joint campaign in the Baghdad area - had rounded up 428 suspected insurgents.

But insurgents continued to wreak havoc in the capital despite the ongoing crackdown in the Abu Ghraib area which is targeting militants believed responsible for multiple attacks on the US-detention facility there and the road linking downtown to the international airport.

Residents yesterday called police about a suspicious-looking car parked opposite the Dijlah Junior High School for Girls in Alwiyah, near eastern Baghdad’s well-known Withaq Square, a Christian neighbourhood.

As bomb disposal experts approached the vehicle, it exploded and killed six bystanders, said police Captain Husham Ismael.

Three civilians and one policeman also were injured. No students were believed to be among the casualties.

“May God seek revenge for those who were killed or injured!” an elderly woman screamed outside a hospital where casualties were brought.

“We hope that such killers be killed or perished as they kill our youth. Those killers are against homeland, against Islam.”

Militants also gunned down two people and seized control of Tal Afar, a town 50 miles west of the northern city of Mosul, police said yesterday, hours after two car bombs killed at least 20 people there late on Monday.

Separately, gunmen opened fire on a four-car convoy carrying conservative Shi’ite legislator Salamah al-Khafaji, one of the most prominent women in Iraq’s new parliament. She escaped unharmed, but four of her bodyguards were critically injured.