Iraqi killed in Baghdad road bomb attack on US army convoy

REBELS detonated a roadside bomb as a US convoy drove by in Baghdad yesterday, killing one Iraqi and wounding another, police said.

Elsewhere, US troops captured three suspected members of an al-Qaida linked group and arrested three former army and intelligence officers.

No US troops were injured in the bomb attack in central Baghdad, police Maj Khatan Jabir said.

A US military Humvee was parked askew in the middle of the road shortly after the blast in the densely populated Karrada neighbourhood, beside a shattered concrete median.

The explosion cracked windows on the street lined with small shops selling vegetables and groceries. People nearby said the dead man worked in a nearby store.

"They've not killed any Americans, just Iraqis as usual. We consider it terrorism," shopkeeper Karim Abbas said bitterly.

Roadside bombs have become the preferred weapon of anti-coalition guerrillas who cannot match the overwhelming firepower of the US-led coalition in Iraq, where the explosive appeared to have been planted.

Earlier yesterday, US troops said they detained three former army and intelligence officers suspected of conducting anti-coalition attacks in a raid in Baqouba, north of Baghdad.

Soldiers blew up the entrance to the house to surprise the occupants.

"We had a report of a terrorist cell which has been conducting terrorist attacks on coalition forces," David Wicklund, Sgt 1st Class of the 649th Military Police, said.

"We came here in the early morning hours and caught them while there were sleeping."

The men appeared to be middle-level officials of the former regime, the highest rank a major.

In Mosul, the military said on Monday that US soldiers killed three suspected Ansar al-Islam militants during a firefight in the northern city of Mosul. Two US soldiers were wounded, said the military.

In the operation on Sunday, suspects lobbed a grenade and started shooting as US soldiers approached their house, the military said in a statement.

After the fight, US troops seized two rocket-propelled grenade launchers, eight grenades and two assault rifles, the statement said. The injured soldiers were in stable condition.

Six people in the house a man, two women and three children were turned over to Iraqi police.

Most Ansar al-Islam fighters were believed to have fled their stronghold in northern Iraq before US forces invaded in March. US and Kurdish forces destroyed the group's main base early in the war.

Tactics of the group, believed to have ties to al-Qaida, have included suicide bombs, car bombs, assassinations and raids on militiamen and politicians of the secular Kurdish government in the north.