Four children killed in explosion in Baghdad

FOUR children collecting rubbish were killed yesterday by a homemade bomb in Baghdad.

Also, masked gunmen killed an Iraqi army officer in a restaurant in the southern city of Basra, police said.

The children died in the New Baghdad neighbourhood in the southeast section of the city.

Insurgents frequently use hidden roadside bombs against US and Iraqi army convoys.

In the attack in Basra, three masked gunmen killed an Iraqi Army officer Maj Mahmoud Hassan Al-Yassiri late on Thursday.

A US marine was killed on Wednesday in a vehicle accident during combat operations in Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad.

Also yesterday, police in Kirkuk, about 180 miles north of Baghdad, said one driver was killed in an attack that set several Turkish oil tankers ablaze the previous night.

Six others were wounded.